


To Forge A Blade

by Toshi_Nama



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Character of Faith, Coming of Age, Crisis of Faith, Everything you know is wrong, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:54:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 69,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24245347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshi_Nama/pseuds/Toshi_Nama
Summary: The Blades of Hessarian are heretics, following lies and a myth of a sword that they never had.The Disciples of Andraste were long-gone, the Temple of Sacred Ashes a myth...until the Hero of Ferelden found it.What else will rise from the shadows of myth? What other blades will be forged in Haven?
Comments: 23
Kudos: 16





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't have done this without the support and friendship of everyone at the OC Emporium, but I owe a deep debt to my two betas. Delawana and Tejaswrites (both also on AO3), you have been absolute angels. This wouldn't be half the story it is without everything you did.

Blood changed everything.

He couldn’t understand, and then he couldn’t make things make sense. He wasn’t at all. Everything he - _she_ \- had believed was torn apart by blood. It hadn’t even hurt.

The days, then weeks, then months had passed in a haze of pain and fear punctuated by failure. Nothing she had done since the truth had been forced on them could make up for that one moment.

_‘You…you have lied to me! You are not my son – you are…’_

He hit her for the first time that night. _She_ had never lied to him, but she had also never corrected her mother when she had. Not that she could have when she’d never realized. It wasn’t until her body’s blood had proven the lie. Once her mother vanished, it was Daddy who’d come when she’d shouted, afraid of an injury she couldn’t see or feel. 

How do you change one decision when it was made years before she had any say? All she could do was to keep his shame from being exposed. So she had kept the deception of inertia and habit. She trained. She hunted. She fed the mabari, Char and Coal. She continued to answer to Harrit’s son even as his love turned to something betrayed. At least Trefir was kind: her hips were hidden easily enough by armor, and she never developed much in the way of breasts.

It wasn’t enough. Whit knew that. It hadn’t been enough for the past years; it wouldn’t be enough in the years to come.

What would have been different if it hadn’t happened? Sometimes Whit couldn’t help but wonder. Daddy had been proud of her, once. Oh, disappointed that she didn’t grow taller, but he was certain that the inches would still come.

They never came.

Instead, her mother went into the world and never returned. That happened when she was ten. When she was twelve, puberty _did_ come. 

That was when they both had to face the truth. He got angry. She hid from it.

He would never have the son he wanted to follow him. Oh, he could always see if another Blade wanted to join him in their cabin, but there weren’t many women and none who suited him. Her mother - they had been well-matched, she was told. She had a lazy perfection to her that suited his restless emotion. She settled him, Pollen said once. That wasn’t the only reason her mother was mourned, though mourning was a gradual thing for Blades who simply vanished. There was no way to know why they didn’t return. Was it death? Was it conversion?

They’d never know.

 _She_ would never know if it was the looming threat that caused her mother to leave when she did. All she knew was that it meant he turned white when she called out, worried about the sudden spill of blood from between her legs.

When he’d realized, his rage needed more of an outlet than her flesh or the dangers of their rocky home. He’d taken it out, eventually, on the leader of the Blades. None in their hidden fortress had expected it. No one had, not unless her mother had known in the darkness of her own secrets. _Anger born of envy…_

She hadn’t seen it before. Surely it wasn’t just her gender that caused the anger? Had it been there all along? _How_ had her mother kept it from boiling over?

It didn’t matter anymore, Whit supposed. After all, he was now the leader of the Blades, Lorenz broken and battered into the darker center of their sheath. It wasn’t enough, she feared. His violence was less, but that bitterness that filled him now hadn’t left.

What would Daddy beat his anger onto now? He still loved her. She _knew_ he still loved her, because he’d never _really_ hurt her. Not like he had Lorenz. Not like he did against the bears and one giant who’d threatened the Blades.

“Whit!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Maker, husband, bright and loving, I will follow where you lead**   
**Yet your promise is still hidden; speak, love - Maker, this I plead.**   
**To free the people trapped by magic, magic made as an aid.**   
**Almarri tribes, all-proud people, come to free those thus enslaved**   
**Spirit-bless’d those standing against the wicked and the corrupt**   
**Bless’d the spirit-warriors, champions fighting for what is just.**   
**Slavery is not true peace**   
**Nor are people grown afraid**   
**Longing for aught but steel’s thrust**   
**To free from chains hidden inside.**

_‘I know you’re excited about this strange bit of Almarri you’ve found, but you must have translated it incorrectly. There were no tribes in that part of the Frostbacks in the Exalted Age. Any relation to the Canticle of Benedictions is simply coincidence. Maybe a Revered Mother happened through, who knows. You’ve seen mirroring of various phrases or legends, that’s all it is. Please review the attached excerpt from the Chant to recognize how different they are._

_Blessed are they who stand before_ _  
_ _The wicked and corrupt and do not falter._   
_Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just._ _  
_ \- Benedictions 4:10

 _I really think someone is playing a joke on you. The University has scholars who are prone to that sort of foulness just to ruin a promising competitor. Are you_ sure _that the scroll is genuine?_

_Brother Elric'_

**

“Whit!” She turned, startled from the questions she had all too often now. “Boy, you’ve got to pay attention. We’re alone out here.”

They were, not that it mattered. The lowland nobles had never cared about this rocky corner of what may be part of their steading, and the Blight and civil war had not changed that. Though those events had disturbed other secrets that had been kept hidden and safe for centuries. 

She shook herself. The Coast wasn’t a place for idle thoughts. Even if they were alone, that didn’t mean they were safe. There were always dangers: animals, falling rocks, bandits...there was a reason they didn’t travel alone.

“You’re right, Pollen,” she sighed, “We need a goat for the pit.”

“You think I don’t know that? Then again, I’m not the one who has to face your father if we fail.” He accepted her change of subject - he must have recognized that she’d apologized as much as she could.

She still winced at how he’d done so. Pollen couldn’t know, but his words cut deep enough to bleed. “Daddy wouldn’t blame you for what isn’t your fault.”

Pollen sighed his own response as they padded through the rock-strewn forest. The entire conversation had been low enough to blend with the storm thundering around them. 

“You’re a good lad, Whit, but your father…” the older hunter chose his words carefully, “I don’t think Trefir’s words run through him so clearly. He’s already started having us demand ‘tithes’ from the people around.”

“Maybe the news of the Disciples…” Whit trailed off. No. She couldn’t use that excuse, even if things had happened in that order. Coincidence did not mean effect, and wanting didn’t change that. Would that Daddy’s anger had come from the news of Haven’s discovery and the destruction of the last of the Disciples. It hadn’t. “Maybe he’s always been like this.”

“Trail.”

Conversation was set aside as she followed Pollen, warily listening. 

Given the season, it was likely they weren’t the only ones hunting the fleet goats. They climbed up the escarpment rather than following the faint signs of fur and cloven hooves. She’d long trusted Pollen to know the mountains and tried to think ahead. Yes. This should let them out above the likeliest trail. She perched on the ledge, fingering a blade.

“If he has, he hid it well. Then, Trefir and Andraste only know what lies in each Blade’s heart. Something needs to change, though. This’ll just get us found, unless there’s worse coming.”

Fear beat against the cage of her ribs, but she was used to that. Pollen was right. Something needed to change. It would have been easier if she didn’t have so many years of Daddy being so different. There had been praise that wasn’t edged with bitterness once. There had been comfort, even laughter. Truth was an amorphous thing.

No. Truth wasn’t amorphous, wasn’t shifting. Truth was a blade in the heart, a piercing thing. She would not become like the Chantry or its false comforts.

**

They found the goat quickly and made an equally quick kill between Pollen’s arrow and a thrown dagger. Unfortunately, the abruptly ended hunt meant they got back early enough for evening drill. 

She’d hoped to avoid it, but now there was no way to do so. She faced Daddy across the circle. “Show me what you’ve learned!” It started the same as always, circling...she knew the dance by heart.

It ended how it always did. Whit picked herself up from where training had left her, battered even further thanks to an unexpected success two exchanges prior. The blow she’d landed had managed to slice Daddy’s thigh. The ones he’d returned had dropped her to the ground, shallowly breathing and hoping there wasn’t a cracked bone to go with the bruises.

“No, he doesn’t need a healer. Whit’s tough enough. I don’t either - I’ll sew it up myself. It’s training.” The dismissive words were heard through the ringing silence in her blood. 

She was tough. She’d proven it before. He’d pulled the blow – he always did. Pain was a lesson; fear was something to live beyond. Whit pushed herself up on one elbow and spat. No blood.

“I said he’s fine!”

Fine or not, there was no way to get to the wound without costing her both armor and shirt. She nodded from the packed center of their fortress. Pain lost to fear. “I’m fine.”

The others left. “Good, son.”

Even now she longed for Daddy’s praise. “Like you said, it’s just part of training.” _‘Loyalty is important.’_

Loyalty was important. But what Pollen had said…what did Daddy want loyalty to? She swallowed dust and blood, then crept up to hands and knees before finally kneeling in the center of his gaze. She saw the frustrated rage glinting in his eyes even if the others didn’t. Daddy was good at hiding his anger.

Whit carried the marks of that, hidden beneath the clothing she was too afraid to remove.

Back in their cottage, she slowly worked off the armor. The rib was cracked at worse. Probably not, she thought. It didn’t quite hurt like that, and everyone knew the difference between what a bruise would do to the body versus a crack - or worse - a break. Cracked bones never healed right and caused problems later on. She looked down at the plate-sized bruise already blackening against her ribs and sighed.

_‘Pain is part of life. Returning pain with pain is not mercy nor justice: it is vengeance. It is a teacher; it is a companion; it is a reminder of where we are from. Poetic, isn’t it? But there is truth nonetheless. Are you acting because you were hurt, or because what was done was unjust? The Maker knows your heart. Hessarian acted out of mercy. The Archon chose to burn Andraste to end the war, but the method he chose was a slow and painful one. He ended the Bride’s message to save his power. Hessarian stood by him to save the Imperium. But he could not see Andraste suffer, and so ended it himself._

_Andraste had no harsh words for him; she smiled. Thus, Hessarian sent her soul to the Maker’s side, and in converting to the truth laid the foundation for all Tevinter to rise in song, not blood._

_Mercy. Loyalty._

_Pain._

_The pain of it was so much, he couldn’t bear to look at the sword. He refused to hold another. “Take it,” he said, “far away.”_

_So I obeyed.’_

“I’m trying, Daddy,” Whit murmured.

The pain would make her better. She would try harder. Even if she couldn’t be the son he wanted to _him,_ she would be to the others. Surely, that would help.

The next morning, leather jerkin laced tight over bandages and an extra wool shirt, she reported for morning drill.

**

The training had gotten worse as the winters passed and she survived her sixteenth year. Olem couldn’t partner her any longer, for all he’d taught. She’d thrown herself into her weapons with the desperate hope it would make Daddy happy. If she could succeed, if she could prove she was more than the body that betrayed him, then maybe he would sheathe his rage.

It was a faint hope, she knew. But hope was the one thing no one, even the Magisters of old, even Dumat in his corrupted glory, had been unable to take from the people. It was why so many threw themselves at the Archdemon, even those who had once worshipped him. It was also why so many followed Andraste when she came. Hope was the secret in the heart of any slave, and it was the secret in the hearts of the Blades. They remembered, they fought, they listened, and they hoped.

So her mother taught her. So old Pollen taught, so Cameron and Gidgit believed - and Olem, though he was older.

She had been her father’s hope, until he found out his hope was a lie.

_Why, mother?_

Daddy’s hammer hit her thigh, and she collapsed to her knee. 

_‘What else do we have, but hope? We have persistence. We have doubt. They are odd things to base the future on, but what else do we have?’_

“Hopeless,” Daddy spat at her. “Whit, you should be better than this!”

If she were his son...if she were a son in truth, would she be? Would she be stronger or faster? Whit didn’t know, and that not knowing sprouted a much darker doubt than Trefir’s purity. Daddy’s voice kept on, the rage the others now faced laced with bitterness.

“You might as well find the Sword of Mercy! Who knows what that _Warden-Commander_ – or the Chantry – did with it.”

She stood. It was hard to hide the limp the way she could hide her tears. Daddy’s hammer was brutal when there was nothing between it and flesh other than hope. “Then I will.”

“What?”

Whit swallowed. Leaving the sheath the Blades had built was terrifying, but when wasn’t she afraid? It had been four years of fear now. Besides - maybe that brash promise would finally be enough.

“I will find it. Hessarian’s Sword.” Whit coughed. “You’ll see. I won’t come back until I have.”

What did he see when he looked at her? The pain from her tattoo had faded - she was an adult now. It didn’t hide her freckles or her mother’s pale eyes any more than its short length concealed her father’s wild hair. The perfect son, others had once murmured. Then she didn’t keep growing to his height and her shoulders broadened only a little from the constant training.

Whit would always be small, lithe rather than strong, sturdy rather than massive. 

Daddy’s eyes closed again, and he turned his back. “So be it.”

**

Daddy didn’t look at her again. She’d stated she was leaving; so be it. He would say nothing else. But Whit had others who would worry, others she needed to tell. She fed Char and Coal, Daddy’s huge mabari, an extra treat. Who would while she was gone? “Remember me,” she whispered. “I’ll come back.”

Coal turned her head with a snort while Char huffed her all over as if to make sure he wouldn’t forget. Their antics teased out the first smile she’d had since she’d made her foolish decision.

It was foolish - but she knew Daddy, and she knew herself. She was an adult, and had made a promise. None of the Blades but him would hold her words against her if she tried to take them back...no, she would, too. In either case, she started to collect her things.

What did she need to take with? Her armor and axes were a given. String for snares, a dagger in her boot and another in her pack. Whetstone. It was a wet spring leading into summer, but how long would she be gone? A blanket, an oiled cloak...food she’d find in the morning to add in. No, she didn’t need food. She knew how to set snares, knew her herbs and plants.

**

“Take it, lad.”

She blinked at Pollen. Even after defying Daddy, she wasn’t brave enough to challenge the old trainer, too. It didn’t matter.

“He doesn’t believe you,” Cameron chuckled, her mate’s voice rich with his usual wit. “I can see Whit’s expression from behind. Take it. Really. Who knows where you’ll go, and not every hunt succeeds.”

They’d ambushed her an hour out. At least she’d heard the silence so she wasn’t completely surprised. Birds, her mother had taught a long time ago, tell you more in their silences than in their songs. Would it be true elsewhere?

“Why’re you doing this, Whit? You know it’s a lost cause. How many centuries has it been?”

She shook her head. “No cause is lost except the one abandoned, Olem.”

“Don’t quote Trefir at me! You know what I mean. The Temple was desecrated by the Slayer. The Disciples...Andraste preserve their souls, they may have kept her Ashes safe, but they couldn’t have stood against the Chantry in its fanaticism. Not once they were found.”

“I’ll quote it because it’s true,” she teased back. “I don’t know if it’s any more a lost cause than my footwork.”

Gidgit giggled at that one. Olem threw up his hands - how many months had he fought her body’s stubborn insistence to place its weight back instead of forward? “Fine. Fine, you be that way. But you’d better come back, hear? I’ll feed the beasts while you’re gone, but they don’t like me.”

“Char doesn’t like anyone, and you tease him.”

It was all just delaying the inevitable. They knew it, too; even if Gidgit and Cameron didn’t realize, both Pollen and even Olem knew Daddy well enough to know that there wasn’t really any way to turn back. She’d succeed or she’d vanish like her mother had.

“Take the food, lad. And our prayers.”

Blades didn’t really have a structure outside their leader, but Pollen was Pollen. She clasped forearms all around. “Andraste’s words guide me,” she murmured, “and watch over all of you.”

There wasn’t much else to say, and she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of them, not for this.

With that, she stepped between Olem and Gidgit, and on toward the goat track the Blades used to get in and out of their fortress. The narrow switchbacks didn’t bother her, and she didn’t look back down to see if her friends had watched her go or if they’d returned to their duties.

They had their duties. She had her path. _Trefir,_ she prayed, _help me find my way._

Andraste gave a path, but it was Trefir and those who walked with him who the Blades looked to for aid. They never answered, but their words were given for the taking.

It would have to be enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Proud as people, First-born spirits, sought in envy to return**   
**To a world weft without envy, made to be what they had spurned.**   
**Fade’s changeless changing, creative splendor, wasted without spite**   
**This place, second, sought to create, with what tools we could provide**   
**Second children, now first beloved - Maker why turn your gaze**   
**From your people, building glory, gliding through this gilded cage?**   
**Have we failed you as we burned,**   
**Or has new creation’s night**   
**Taken interest past the haze**   
**Of mortals’ understanding mild?**

**

Outsiders, she’d heard, called the Storm Coast harsh. It was a direct and brutal land: the perfect place for the Blades to nurture their own, remember what history had rewritten, and train. There were few ways to get enough coin to repair armor and be ready for Andraste’s need, however. It was why the Blades left to sell their swords to the few bidders that had honor. There was also the fact that a blade in its sheath did nothing. They were meant to come out for a purpose. It’s why they had maps, even if she didn’t take one with.

The move southwest was still a change as rocks faded into deeper forest. As harsh as the Coast was, it was direct. Clear. Understandable.

The lands past her rocky home were worse, Whit decided. “It’s not enough to have slips and storms,” she muttered under her breath. “Now even the trees refuse to keep a proper distance.” She’d been able to skirt one town by staying to the high cliffs few not born to them would consider passable. 

Everything past that point was harder.

The thick road leading to Denerim had been a nightmare. She blessed her decision to become nocturnal; like the bats, she slipped through the sections away from the flickering campsites. 

“It’s easy to forget how large things are,” she sighed. The country they’d claimed a corner of certainly was larger than she’d realized, since she hadn’t been considered ready to venture beyond their home with a mentor, much less on her own. Everything changed when she’d made her promise. She shivered. ‘Large,’ she had to admit, was an understatement.

Everything was large. The trees she wove between were three times the girth of the lodge poles or wiry scrub pines of the cliffs; the horizons once she’d left the Coast kept traveling into distances she couldn’t fathom. Worse was the road large enough for _wagons_ to pass each other in place of the carefully-camouflaged goat tracks the Blades used near their own home. The people, she avoided. One advantage to the road and space was that dust from travellers left its own unique spoor.

Whit, slight and creeping in the night, tucked into a gully or pocket against a hillside during the day, didn’t.

She was used to silence, she thought. It was comforting when punctuated by birds, the patter of rain, and various bugs and small creatures. That lasted all of the week and a half it took to clear the cliffs. The echoes in the dry hills had left her aching for anything familiar, and she’d started talking at night just to hear her own voice. 

Travel was harder than she’d expected. Most Blades didn’t leave the sheath of their fortress for another year or two, but Whit didn’t regret doing so. When hunger came, she hunted. If she failed, her edge would have to be stronger the next night. The traps and snares that worked in their isolated home managed well enough as she travelled, so long as she was away from towns and villages.

Unfortunately, the other foraging failed her as she went.

The landmarks were not as she’d expected.

Whit skirted the edge of a forest that had far too many eyes for comfort. It smelled alive and welcoming, but there was a musk that made her think of predators…

No. For the night she stayed close enough to climb a tree and look past winter-cleared branches to chart the stars. It had been two weeks since she’d seen them.

The shivers that ran along her bones were an annoyance, no more. Whit had her heavy bearskin tucked into the corner of a branch two lengths below her; right now, she needed to focus. Gazing up, she lined Hessarian’s Blade and looked for the fixed center of the Pyre. 

_“_ Blast _.”_

After so long, her whispers and murmurs were just loud enough to give her the illusion of human contact. 

“Somehow I’ve gone south.” Digging in her memory for the map of Ferelden, that meant - Trefir, that meant this must be the enormous forest that crept up from the Wilds. But Haven was _west,_ not South. It lay sheltered by the Frostback Mountains, safe off of the main passes. Its obscurity had sheltered it for centuries - until the Chantry scholar and the Slayer of Urthemiel. 

She shook her head. “None of that matters now. What does is that I’ve wasted days going the wrong way.” Hungry days, too. There were also different dangers going into the Wilds. The Almarri had abandoned them for the mountains and plains after Andraste called the tribes to action, and others had taken that space with gratitude.

Whit had no objection to the Chasind or other wild folk, but would _they_ know that? No, better to skirt their territory, trying to stay in the no man’s land between the Wilds, the rumors of Dalish that sprang up among the Chasind and stranger tales, and the rolling hills and fields that should be just outside the Wilds. It was one of the...South...something.

“Maybe I should have paid more attention when Blades returned from their travels. Well, it’s too late to worry about that now.” Now she needed to slip along the edges of the forest, then head west.

Yes. The mountains would be west. Then she could piece together where within them was the sheltered sanctity of the Temple. The histories of the Blades didn’t say anything exact, but there were hints and trail signs, meanings that only those who remembered what Andraste truly said would know.

**

She had gone too far south as she’d avoided both roads and villages as best she could. There shouldn’t have been a full forest, and even if there was... “I should have found something - more clearings, or another road.” Instead, things had gotten heavy with moisture. Her boots sank into the ground before they steadied, and moss dripped from every gnarled branch.

_‘What good is should? We live in what is.’_

More fool she. The woods were hard, but she missed the days she could walk beneath the trees, only the whispers and rustles disturbing her. This forested murk was worse. Here in the cramped space between trunks, ferns, and rushes, the silence pressed against her. It wasn’t the open simplicity she knew, but one of shadows and mold. Paths didn’t stay as she followed them, but were eaten by water. 

So she talked. It was her own timid defiance against the oppression around her; not loud enough to disturb the buzzing or even the arrogant cries of what she’d learned were frogs, but enough to change the tenor of the air next to her lips.

“I wonder what surprise comes next.” 

She didn’t have long to wonder.

Even as she etched a triangle into the mossy tree next to her, she felt movement. What threats grew in this place? Her breath stilled. Only then did she notice the frogs had also gone silent. All she could hear was her heartbeat.

_‘Trefir taught those who came with him many things. He had been no chieftain’s wife, no Bride, no soldier, nor one of the People who rebelled. He had been a slave too caged by his own complacency and fear to dream of being more. It wasn’t until Hessarian turned to him that he was forced to find courage.’_

That was useless. Other snippets of her lessons and the journals of the Blades who came before flitted through her mind.

_‘Soldiers know battle. We must be able to fight, but we are not that. For a soldier, there is charge and retreat, wheel and encircle. Blades are hired because results happen in ways a warrior does not expect. A snare, perhaps, or food taken for those in need rather than those wishing blood. Cantrips. Circles. Blades are weapons, but not warriors. We think like slaves; we remember that Andraste was undefeated until she went into a battle where defeat was necessary.’_

The shadows began to form into three - another pair to her right - no eyes, but figures moving silently through this place. They were terrifying, and too many for her axes. _Don’t fight._ She could surrender or she could hide.

The creatures knew this place better than her. Whit’s mind spun in circles. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t hide where there were no bushes or caves. There was nothing she could reach. Her fingers flexed, driving moss and bark under the nails.

Wait.

Bark. This tree was more than the whippet-thin alders she knew, or the majestic lodgepoles that ruled the rocks. It was gnarled, branches jutting every which way: an old woman of a tree. Panic took over her body.

Her mind hadn’t started to work until she stilled even her breath, staring from her newly found perch. The first of the figures ranged below her, the stench of rot and corruption catching in her throat. It paused and dropped to its hands, sniffing where she’d frozen. Now she froze again, staring wide-eyed from within the branches that formed her makeshift nest well above above its head.

What head it had left.

_‘Bodies were forced to do the will of the Magisters. Do not hate them, but pity the souls that haven’t found peace, the innocent claimed for endless hunger. They are to be feared and given mercy.’_

_“_ Trefir forgive me _,”_ Whit murmured with what little breath she could force out, “I can’t.” Not when the one was joined by the others. “Andraste guide you to the Maker’s side.”

Fire would free them; no wonder they roamed this fetid place. Fire was unwelcome to the spirits who’d claimed the bodies emptied long ago. For what battle, she wondered, had their rest been disturbed to re-play again and again?

They would not hear, she knew. The old Almarri chant from before Andraste’s own song rolled from her tongue. Even though the dead only followed the warmth of the living, Whit’s voice stayed quiet. There was something about the rot and fog-blurred shadows that held her back.

 _“Gods of this place, hear my call._ _  
__Take the spirit from this flesh._ _  
__See it to the Beyond._ _  
__  
__Maker and Bride, guide their steps_  
 _Halting uneasy, bound too long_ _  
_Let them find their journey’s end.”

The rest came, punctuated by the uneven splats of the undead below her. One paused. She held her breath as it turned, seeking.

It kept on.

Height, apparently, was enough.

Once they had passed, she breathed again. Now she understood why no one travelled at night, even in the more settled lands. “How many were killed in the twin wars and could not find their rest?”

How many hadn’t been sent to the Maker’s side? The aching need to give them mercy ran through her.

On the other hand, she was alone.

“Better to be awake and moving than asleep.” She wasn’t sure she could sleep in trees. Fear and doubt were crippling now, but they also kept her from getting overconfident. Beasts of the day wouldn’t come too close to anything that smelled of fire; she could time things well enough to put up a blanket of smoke while dawn would hide it, and another to cook what her snares might catch while she slept. It wasn’t the way she’d been taught to do things, but thanks to Pollen’s insistence, she hadn’t gone hungry.

Yet.

**

How long had the Blades and Disciples worked together? _‘Trefir took Hessarian’s Blade, knowing it had been sanctified with bloody fire, mercy, and forgiveness for the life it drank. On another path went those closest to Andraste. They wended their ways through the Imperium, back to the mountains and Wilds of Andraste’s clan. No matter how long it had been, her mother knew that her daughter must return to the place her visions promised her a daughter - a daughter lost to the Maker, then gifted to us all.’_ The rolling tones of Harper ran through her mind following the cadences of the Blades’ milk-tongues. It was richer than Trade.

The letters ran along her mind’s eye, fluid as they travelled and merged to create meaning. It wasn’t just the words, but how they sat next to each other modified and deepened what was said.

The language of the Almarri and Tevene had little to do with each other, except each packed hosts of meaning into each line, each story that was meant to be both history and parable. Those were the languages of the Blades; Trade was for those outside their own kind.

Whit shook her head. _‘Focus! If you fail, you will die. We live on wits more than our weapons. In that, we are still the children of slaves.’_

She needed to focus. There was no food.

Three mornings now, she’d woken to empty and shredded snares with only spots of blood to show for her efforts. Now, Whit was well past the fauna she knew and in a hot summer there were no easy berries, no stupid young to catch as she walked.

“I suppose I’ll have to,” she muttered. “It’s a risk, but what isn’t? Perhaps...perhaps they’ll think of me as one of the Wildlings? That wouldn’t be so bad, other than being cheated.”

She knew little of those outside the Blades. Stories of their dishonor, the casual way merchants would cheat, the way _coin_ mattered more than the good of those around them. She had no coin, but Blades had always sold their skill for coin and what coin could buy in the greater world. There would be something she could do, she was certain of it. _Someone_ would need help, and those outside had no trouble announcing and demanding assistance.

Or so she thought.

The village had no need of help. The harvest was collected, the canning was done, and she was no proven hunter to help against wolves or bears. Not that she’d admit to them, when her guise of an untested youth gained her some level of compassion.

“Sorry, boy,” the trader sighed. “I’ve got no need.”

Whit nodded and turned away.

“Wait!” There was something in his eyes. It didn’t seem to be a threat, so she stopped to listen. Listening cost nothing. _Trusting_ was the point of the dagger - the danger. It could wound deep. “The Chantry. You’ve heard the Chant, boy?”

What was the safe answer? It was evident she wasn’t from the ‘civilized’ parts of Ferelden, but she couldn’t be seen as a savage threat. Plus, she wouldn’t lie, even if lies were all they were able to give in return.

“Yes, I have.” 

There. That was - well, he didn’t close off in suspicion. _Trefir_ she was hungry. It took more control than she’d expected to stop from begging, and more yet to stop from saying the dialogue that ran in her mind in its own tongue so different than the harsh and flat Trade the others used. Her mind ached from translating the babbling around her into the languages she thought in.

“Well, then. The Chantry has services and the Revered Mother’s got a spot of mercy in her soul. You go in and pray; Andraste willing, she’ll offer you the comfort of the Chantry’s arms for the night.” 

He shook his head and chuckled. What had her face shown?

“Oh, you are from out in the Wilds, boy. Not that kind of comfort, or that kind of threat. The food’s nothing fancy, but it’s shared freely.”

Food.

Somewhere with a pallet or floor that she didn’t need to guard, and a fire perhaps.

“Thank you, ser.”

The trader shook his head. “I’m no ser. You go to the Chantry. It’s a good place. Maybe you’ll find more than you think, there.”

**

Whatever they sang, it wasn’t the Chant.

Whit knew to expect that, but at least the cadence at a few parts was almost close enough to what she’d grown up hearing and reading that she could mouth along and find the melody unusual but not threatening.

It wasn’t just that the songs had been moved from Almarri or Tevene to Trade. Not even that the meaning was changed without the allusions and depth the dwarves had stripped to make Trade understandable to all for an exchange of goods rather than knowledge.

“Is something wrong, child?”

Whit looked up, startled. Then she stared at the floor. What must this woman in garish robes think of the ‘boy’ in front of her in worn leather and stinking cloth, grime smeared deep enough to hide her freckles? “It’s nothing I can fix.”

She swallowed against hunger and tried to ignore the assessing look. She could have lied - it would have been safer to lie - but she wouldn’t. Instead, she used the truth: _she_ couldn’t correct the Chantry on the lies and mistranslations of eight or nine hundred years. Surely some of the other Blades had tried, the ones sent into the Chantry to see what had happened.

“Oh, child.” There was warmth threaded through the voice rather than condemnation. “You must be the one I heard of, looking for work before returning on your way.”

“Yes.”

She risked a glance up at the...Aunt? Mother? Woman, for certain, the way her breasts pressed against the thick wool robes. The woman was watching a little too closely, but shook her head. “You don’t sound Chasind, but we see travellers of all sorts. Are you one who preys on others?”

Whit’s eyes widened. “No!”

“I thought not. I’ll show you to a room, and I think there’s some water and soap.”

The woman kept up a conversation as they went. It was embarrassing to listen to how she slowed down her words so Whit could follow. Her cheeks burned beneath the tattoo and mask she tried to hold up. Was her Trade still so bad?

She knew it was.

The Blades didn’t start learning Trade until their bodies began transitioning to adulthood, and some never learned much of it at all. The accents here were different, and a day’s exposure wasn’t enough to get used to the _feel_ of it spoken by someone who used it as their own milk-tongue. Neither the fact that she knew nothing of what the woman discussed, or that she kept itching her nose eased the challenge, either.

“Do you have a cold? An illness? I can find a healer.”

“No! No,” Whit tried to answer more calmly once the question sank past the slew of sounds into meaning. “It’s not...a cold. Nothing.” 

It wasn’t a cold at all. She tried to stop her nose from wrinkling at the heavy incense. The Blades didn’t burn things to change the air unless it was for healing or to flavor a haunch of meat. Why would people do such a thing _inside?_ The people she’d met had bathed often enough that she had noticed her own filth, not the other way around. Her last bath had been a few days ago, and longer since she’d been able to wash her clothing.

The Chantry was a strange, foreign place. The stone all around her was oddly heavy despite the beauty of the colored light streaming through windows. There was no natural wind or sense of nature like in a cave, and it didn’t breathe the way wood and wattle could. She rubbed her nose again. Stone around her she could tolerate, given the narrow caves near her home. _Home._ ‘Home’ was so very far away. Daddy’s back - was it still home? The woman had kept talking, but now she remembered. She wasn’t an aunt. The Chantry used ‘mother’ as a title. Mother. _Why, mother?_

The Mother in front of her, rather than in her memory, looked at her. “As you say, my son. Here is a room for you.”

The door opened - there was no lock. It was small, but the pallet was covered with a stuffed...something, and there was an image of a woman who was undoubtedly supposed to be Andraste rough-carved and hung against the wall. At least the room had a small window.

“Thank you,” she said when the woman didn’t go. “This is... nice.”

She nodded. “I’ll knock when the water is ready.”

While Whit waited, she took off her boots and prodded the thing on the pallet. It wasn’t good, tanned hide and fur. Instead it was heavy, rough cloth filled with something that smelled like the fields outside. It poked up and through in places. She wrapped the thin blanket around it again, and lowered the heavier on top. It was yet another reminder of how different this was from home.

She bit her lip. She wouldn’t cry. Not here.

She hadn’t done more than oil and check her weapons before something hit the door.

“Come in?”

It was the right response; an elf slid in with two buckets. “Water, ser. Rags and soap.” Ah, she’d had them under her arm. “Services are in thirty minutes, and dinner after.”

Whit blinked.

More services? How did these people ever get anything done? Andraste had never wanted worship of _her -_ only the Maker - and she had never expected people to spend all their time doing so in some sort of...of _temple._ She was Almarri. 

The people now were not.

Also, the elf was still waiting.

“Thank you,” she said.

The door closed, and she cautiously stripped. First in went her filthy clothes - one bucket was dedicated to scrubbing out the travel-stains and sweat that stiffened them. Once that was done and she’d laid them along the floor to dry, she used more soap and the rags to scrub herself down.

Even the soap was scented with some kind of local flower. It gave off a sweet scent that would have been overpowering if it weren’t for the herbs underneath. As it was, Whit chose less soap and more scrubbing.

In the last clean and dry set of clothing she had, leather jerkin back over the top, she wandered out of her room sometime before ‘services.’ It wouldn’t be hard to find the main prayer space - any large room was like any other, surely.

It was - and despite that, was not at all what she had expected. There was _gold_ in here, the useless metal shining against the more common brass and polished wood. A larger statue of Andraste stood amidst banks of candles. The Mother was in a more formal set of robes, white and blood-red. They started chanting something, the echoes making it even harder to understand. It had been easier when it was just the two people, apparently practicing, in the smaller space that the earlier ‘services’ had used.

She mouthed along so she didn’t look too out of place, and wondered how long until she could escape to dinner. Or escape entirely.

**

While the Mother was kind enough, Whit determined that she had no desire to stay in a Chantry again. The ‘Chant,’ in Trade and with a mixed relationship to Andraste’s actual songs and words, itched against her mind. It was wrong, and the stark differences were unpleasant.

Worse were the questions, sparked by the people coming to worship, and by the kindness she had been shown. Were these Mothers right? Had the Blades failed their duty so badly that the false Chantry had taken on the mantle of Andraste’s mercy?

No. Surely not. She didn’t want to believe it, even if she’d heard it from others. Despite her resistance, she was a Blade. The possibility existed, no matter the care they took of the bespelled papers and scraps they’d saved along with what a few scholars had sought out over the centuries - no. Outside their fortress, they were called Ages. Besides, preservation was not mercy. It was important, but it wasn’t their purpose. Their purpose was mercy.

Were they still the hand of Andraste, her blade?

 _‘Doubt is the heart of a true believer,’_ the Tevene spun through her mind. _‘If you cannot question, if you fail to wonder, you cannot grow. Belief is yearning for certainty while knowing certainty is for fools who seek to mimic the divine. Without doubt, it is knowledge - and becomes false knowledge. That is why the slaves flocked first to Andraste’s banner. It was the hope of freedom, the doubt that only uncertain lives granted, that let them wonder.’_

They were Trefir’s words, but it was a truth that resonated in her heart.

She turned on the too-soft pallet stuffed with hay, the dry-sweet scent wrinkling her nose. So much was so different…

“Should I have stayed?” 

The whisper was eaten by the uncaring walls of this place and its thick stone. _Should_ she have chosen to keep the precarious balance between her daddy and what the Blades _should_ be?

It was months too late to wonder now. Whit knew she would have to find Haven and what guarded it, and…

And then?

“I don’t know,” she admitted to herself with a sigh. It didn’t hurt that much. Not knowing was what she was used to. She’d never known. She’d sworn she’d find Hessarian’s sword and return it to the Blades. To _the Blades._ What would happen then? Would it actually change anything, or ease her father’s temper. There was so much that was different, but she was no longer sure if it was worse than what Pollen and Olem mentioned had started to happen. Blades weren’t selling their swords, but others’ safety. The sword had to help, but what would a single sword do?

She sighed again. One sword would accomplish nothing, probably - but ‘probably’ left room for maybe. _‘Doubt is the parent of hope.’_ Her doubt reminded her that just because this place was different didn’t mean it was evil - and just because a Blade did it didn’t make it good. Perhaps there was something to learn here. At the very least, it let her hear plenty of Trade without having to interact. Much.

Perhaps - perhaps a few days wouldn’t be bad after all. It would let her learn things she hadn’t at home. She knew how to observe. There was another side of things, as she listened to her feet throbbing her heartbeat. She’d demanded as much of her body as Daddy and Pollen had, and it hardly knew what to do now that she wasn’t walking leagues each day.

“I’m tired of travelling,” she admitted to the room. It was good after such a long day to hear Almarri again, even if it was only her own words. She was tired, more tired than she’d expected. Long hunts and longer drills didn’t prepare for the journey she’d undertaken. How long had she been moving? Whit realized she never thought to count the days. 

_‘The seasons don’t care if you notice them - they move on.’_ They were reliable in their passing if unpredictable at the moment. Now? It was summer, heavy and dry. Summer. What all had happened that she hadn’t noticed the season changing?

“There were the two encounters with wolves, the one with the restless dead...the ram I’d happened on in his field.” She’d run away from that one, and still needed to climb a tree. Luck for her that the ram had his ewes somewhere and got tired of bellowing challenges. Even at night, travelling alone was dangerous.

A light voice ran along the melody the ‘Chantry’ had chosen for the ‘Chant,’ and Whit’s thoughts shifted. Was it another of their Mothers?

All the mothers…

“Why, mother?” She turned over again, not wanting to see the image they used for Andraste here. “Why did you leave? Why did you raise me as a son?” 

She hadn’t known for so long - not until her body’s betrayal of both her and Daddy, years after her mother had vanished. Nudity just wasn’t _done_ in the Blades, though most men were comfortable taking off their shirts in summer.

Why?

There were no answers to be gained from the dead, and her mother had been gone for five years. Whatever reasons she’d had, she’d taken them with her to the Maker’s side.

The questions choked her, smothering her more than the still air and heavy incense. Here, at least, there may be answers - answers that might be lies, but it would still be something to break against what she’d been taught.

Maybe staying would be a good thing. Just for a little bit.

Besides, she was tired of being alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Beauty far, beauty wide, Maker’s creation, we’re lost and burned.**   
**Darkness, silence, Blighted beauty - please remind us and return**   
**Illness, famine, magic gifted - magic your most squandered gift,**   
**Rent the heavens, blackened City, fear and desperation-made rift.**   
**Magisters lost without Your guidance, Maker do not spurn**   
**I call to you, heart-song creation - welcome we will earn**   
**Bold perhaps but sincere to turn**   
**Love of this world so blessed**   
**Into action, we will learn**   
**To sing your praises, joy inside.**

**

Two days after she walked in, she left the village behind her. There were enough questions to make her nervous, and the constant Trade around her was oppressive. A Wildling boy with weak mastery of Trade wasn’t seen as a threat - or able to be remembered. She hoped so. The few things she’d heard were unnerving unlike what she knew.

“I need time and space.” She yearned for the silence of her own thoughts, something she’d cursed only days ago. Well, there would be silence aplenty, depending on her route. Whit shifted her pack on her hips; it was as thin as before she walked into the nameless village, but she’d expected nothing else.

The Chantry had fed her, but in the absentminded way of the village it lay within. The people did not leave, so why should it aid those who wished to? _‘What do you know of this Chantry, the twisting of Andraste’s song?’_

“It’s not that easy, Gidgit. You should have been there.” Maybe it would have made sense to the girl who’d pored over records, or Olem with his experience beyond the fortress. It didn’t to her. Andraste stripped of her Clan sign, no mark of the Hold she’d once called her own - they’d trimmed her to their need even where they said she’d once been of the Almarri. Just so the Chantry. _She_ could see signs of the hospitality the Holds gave guests, the meeting space, but the fire to welcome the lesser gods was scattered and broken.

It wasn’t only the fire. Villages and towns were scattered across this easy landscape, which only made it more dangerous for her. People meant it was harder to forage. People meant it wasn’t ‘hunting,’ but ‘poaching;’ not ‘forage,’ but ‘theft.’ Plus, every person made it more likely she would slip and let loose something that would make a person wonder. There was a reason why, even when the Blades had that extra year - or two - to get ready, they usually were accompanied by a more experienced Blade. It was too easy to make mistakes.

But no, not her. She’d gone alone. Who would stop Harrit’s son? None wanted to risk his deadly temper.

What now? What did she want?

Whit nodded, far enough out to be forgotten by the villagers who’d gained no news or performance from her brief stint and saw travellers often enough that one boy was no rarity.

“Space.”

Silence.

The seductive danger of complacency was worse than others she could choose from, so she chose the danger she wouldn’t forget. Instead of staying along the westward road toward a red...cavern, Whit followed a faint footpath south. It had been a road once. Under the growth there was heavily-packed stone and dirt, and even the ruts of wagon wheels. 

A day out she saw the first signs of the danger she wanted.

Winter’s blanket covered the aching sparseness of sickened fields, but the other signs were still there for someone who knew what to look for. Or at least, she admitted, knew what she’d read she should look for.

_‘The devastation was simply life after two centuries of Blight. If you could smell rot, it meant there was enough left in the soil to support crops. Where acid dusted the back of your throat, nothing would grow.’_

The stories of Trefir’s journey, Whit repurposed for her own. This time she wasn’t looking for ground safe to grow and settle, but something else. She ranged further. The bark still peeled itself from the trees. Further. What she sought was further.

She continued south until the third tree she touched disintegrated around her fingertips, revealing only more of the grey-black puzzle that cracked across the surface. Here. She’d found what she sought.

Blighted land.

In another century or two, birds might nest, the trees might fall...soil might blow far enough to bring decay back. For now, it was empty and desolate, destroyed by the sin of the High Priests and Urthemiel’s armies.

There would be nothing to hunt. Nothing grew here. Nothing lived where the Blight still ruled.

“On the other hand,” she commented to her doubts, “there is still foraging.”

Urthemiel was defeated nine years ago - almost ten, maybe. News travelled slowly to the Blades. It had been long enough for everyone to _know_ the ‘Blightlands’ were deadly. Long enough for remaining darkspawn to return to their darkness or seek entry to less Blighted lands where their rage could find a bleeding target.

_‘Water cannot Blight. That is how the Almarri survived. It does not, for whatever reason. Possibly the refuge remains because the High Priests, like the others of their kind, cared for dominating the living rather that which doesn’t bleed red. Some other things, too, could survive the Blight. That we could use as we travelled, when we entered land too sick for growth. Hessarian was sure before I left that this is how Andraste’s scouts and saboteurs travelled. They lived off what was abandoned beneath Dumat’s army, across lands that were worthless and thus, forgotten by Magisters now facing a living threat._

_How many were lost without a word, silently facing starvation or remnants of the darkspawn birthed by the sins of the High Priests?_

_Countless, I would guess._

_But more volunteered to take their place. The slaves were already dead just for daring questions and hopes. More, we were slaves. A slave’s death is their only certainty - the unknown is when. In that space lies a slave’s freedom. It is a cruel one.’_

Hunger was only a dull, constant ache when Whit found the first abandoned farm. In Blighted lands, there was no decay…if there was food, she could eat it. It was not theft; the dead have no possessions.

She drew water from the well. It tasted flat and dead, but nothing worse.

The stew made of ancient wizened apples and potatoes along with crumbles of cured ham and wheat dust was gluey, but warm. She made as much as she could of the long-forgotten cache of food lost to flight.

The wine in the empty town had turned to syrupy vinegar, but a little worked to give the meatier stew a tang. She chewed, jaw aching, and kept pondering what would come next. There was already the tang of future snow hiding behind the summer days, and she’d needed to scavenge an extra blanket.

Now she had the time and space she needed to think. Her mind went to the more pressing problem, not that she _wanted_ the solitude she also hated. What to make of the Chantry she had seen?

_‘We know Andraste’s words. The ‘Chantry’ has created their own and given them to the Bride - yet they change with the seasons and politics. Any contradiction is crushed with shield and sword, or with mobs of their faithful._

_They have destroyed the Dales, the last promise of Andraste._

_They have sought us, declaring a so-called Exalted March - a march of death - against the Blades for remembering that mercy can be harsh, for remembering what they wanted forgotten. They have never forgiven us for aiding the Disciples. They have never forgotten the Ashes of The Bride are beyond their reach.’_

All of this she knew was accurate. Blood of the Blades stained the Frostback mountains, stained the lowlands...yet the Blades had survived. 

Her journey, her days of desperation within that small Chantry, had showed her that ‘truth’ was more complicated. Yes, she questioned everything - but she could not question her full belly, the room given to a stranger youth, without asking for coin. She’d had none then. She did now, gifted by the dead, and kept it against a future need.

She hadn’t needed coin and hadn’t had to steal or beg food thanks to the organization that would kill her if they knew what she was. Not her body’s shape, but what lay within her mind. Even among the charity and song, she hadn’t missed the heavy steal and the flaming sword.

 _‘The sword - the sword remembers. It only burns the unworthy, the unbeliever, the one who cannot doubt. Hessarian tried to believe, but he could not doubt. He was no slave, but a master.’_

Not all of the bits of history Whit remembered made sense, but this might fit. The flaming sword. The flame of justice? The sword was the mercy, the flames were what those in power saw as just.

The Chantry was almost incomprehensible, full of needless contradictions.

The Chantry was also the one that now knew of the home of the Disciples, thanks to luck and the Slayer of Urthemiel. She needed to piece together something of how the Chantry was understood by those who lived it. Her own life might depend on it.

**

For weeks, she’d stayed out beyond where people would travel. Thanks to the words the Blades had saved, she’d avoided Blight Sickness, but that didn’t change the feel of being a ghoul, living off of the dead and what the corruption hadn’t already claimed.

The stars still looked the same in the Blightlands. The acrid Taint she’d grown used to didn’t hide them from sight. Atop the latest farmhouse, she watched them wheel and flicker. There was Dumat, fallen from his Tevinter throne, the Archon inverted so far south. Her eyes sought out the Pyre, Hesserian’s sword shining bright. The Blade...the Blade.

What would a piece of metal do?

_‘Everything is a symbol, and symbols in the Maker’s world have power. What powers Hessarian’s Blade has, I do not know, but it is up to us to be Andraste’s mercy. Until the Chant is known, her justice must be carried out, and who better than a slave to know when it is justice or vengeance? Who better than one whose death has more value than his life to know mercy?’_

“It’s not that easy,” she whispered.

The stars flickered and hid as clouds obscured them.

Her own words mocked her.

How ‘easy’ had it been for Trefir to take his master’s sword and flee with the shattered disciples who most loved the woman Hessarian and the Archon had killed? How ‘easy’ was Maferath’s life, or Andraste’s daughters? The Disciples who had only thankless vigilance as the years spilled on without them, or the Chantry that had lost to time, malice, or misunderstanding the records of who Andraste was? _No one has it easy._

She swallowed, Tainted dust itching at her throat.

She’d thought she was alone before. Whit knew better now. The lie of her gender was armor the others couldn’t breach, not even knowing it was there...but they had been friends still. Char and Coal, the others, even the comforting routine of the Blades all around her.

One hand absently traced the lines of the tattoo, spreading jagged lines across half her face. Gidgit had held the ink as Temere used the needles. It would fade, with enough years - the pain was less than a year past, though. The day she’d turned sixteen.

The day she’d become an adult, a _man,_ to her fellows.

Who else knew how lies could build a weight all their own, buttressed by the promise of violence? What secrets did the others hold, hidden in their own pockets of fear and shame?

Five years gone, she saw her mother’s face. The freckles, the grey eyes...those were her mother’s. Thankfully, she hadn’t inherited her mother’s more generous figure. Her life was hard as it was.

“Is this what you wanted? Is this why you left?”

There would be no answer.

There hadn’t been one, not since she left and only her mace was recovered.

Whit shook her head. “Maybe I should find people again.” The strain of using Trade rather than the mix of Almarri and Tevene she knew best had kept the worst of her doubts away for those few days. It was too _hard_ to be lonely then.

She wouldn’t, though. People meant questions, and she already had too many of her own.

 _Would_ the Sword help, even if she could find it? Could it? Daddy’s anger, what she’d started hearing before she left...the rage ruling in place of doubt was dangerous. It was more than dangerous for the Blades themselves, it was dangerous for their purpose. _‘Slaves live by fear and doubt. Rage and certainty are for the magisters. It is what will destroy them.’_ Could finding a sword change Daddy back to how he had been?

“It has to help,” she said, her words lost against the endless sky and empty, Blighted ground around her.

**

Travel wasn’t easy, not through Blighted land and desolate forests that dropped wind-torn crumbles of what had been branches onto frozen streams. Luck held, though, and Whit kept moving west until she reached the lapping shore of where the Horde had been.

Her only enemy was the hunger she alone carried with her. The doubts were almost a friend.

The land had shifted to something almost familiar by the time Whit finally left the shelter of Taint to creep her solitary way across foothills decorated with yellow-grey grass and a few valiant flowers.

The mountains had taunted her with their promise for a week and a half, but she’d reached their toes. A few brave robins chirped as they sought the lonely worms of this place. The scene was desolate to someone used to fertile plains, but it brought a smile to her face. How long since she had smiled?

“How long has it been?”

One fat fellow gave her an offended look, then hopped behind a skeletal bush. It did nothing to conceal his rusty breast, but that didn’t matter. Whit ignored him to continue talking to herself.

How long _had_ it been now? The leaves were still green, but the year’s new buds had darkened to match the older growth.

“Three months? Four, maybe?” At least the land was becoming more familiar, even if this was the furthest corner of Ferelden from where she called ‘home.’ Four, Whit decided. It had been four months.

Soon, she’d have to start seeking people or climb into the mountains themselves.

_‘We split when it was time. Those who were closest to Andraste took her remains into the heart of the mountains, where Korth had hidden his heart. It was a fitting place for the woman who’d given hers to the Maker himself. I and those who came with turned east. All of this had belonged to the Almarri before the Imperium came. All of it would return to the Almmari now that the Imperium’s hold was broken. It was a place that nurtured questions rather than certainty._

_It was out of the Magisters’ reach._

_I loved Hessarian in my own way, but it was the love of a slave. Leaving him was a painful freedom I still ached to learn. I had never held my head high._

_The Almarri do not have the same views of elves as the Imperium. To the tribes, we are still people, if not the People Shartan seeks to restore. It is enough for me. Let my ears fade from my children’s appearance - I will become one of them and keep the knowledge cradled close._

_Mercy has a sharp edge. I would have it no other way.’_

“North, I suppose.”

She wasn’t equipped for the mountains, especially not mountains so close to Blighted lands. Instead, Whit guided along the rocky foothills, seeking out the ripened berries and nuts. More would come as the leaves changed; until then, she would have to subsist on what supplies she had left from Blighted homes and what she could find that looked like her home.

Chewing on a pine needle, she kept walking.

**

There were people again.

These people didn’t question her, or why she was travelling alone. Instead, there was only one question to start any conversation.

“What will you do when you reach the Temple?”

Whit blinked. “Pray. You?”

It was a safe answer. It also didn’t take many words to show her foreign nature, and one that with little effort turned the conversation back to them. They chattered at her, and she was able to pick out a few things.

Haven had been discovered; she knew that years ago, when the news crept through. Before her mother vanished, before her daddy had been betrayed by her body. Somehow, Whit hadn’t considered what that would _mean._

The high, cold air was still free, but there were too many lungs trying to claim it. Pilgrims. That was what was happening. People wanted to see the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Her heart ached.

“The Ashes?”

One of the travellers shook his head sadly. “Lost, it’s said. They were dragon-worshipers, those heretics that the Hero cleared out. Maybe when we restore it, we’ll find them again.”

“Dragon-worshipers?”

“Yeah.” The man spit. “Called themselves ‘Disciples of Andraste,’ then went an’ worshipped a dragon. Heretics, the lot of ‘em, and what they got up to...bad business, that. Praise Andraste the Hero caught ‘em out and killed ‘em off, and the Chantry got the rest.”

She had a hard time following his accented Trade, so different than her own, but nodded along even as her stomach clenched.

The Disciples - dragon-worshipers? No. Not unless they lost their way entirely. But how long since the Blades and Disciples had spoken? The Disciples had been Andraste’s closest followers, her closest friends. They _couldn’t_ have gone to worship a dragon. They were the ones who held the greater secret and protected it. Surely, it was lies?

 _Maybe_ burrowed its way into her heart. Maybe, and the greater poison of doubt. If the Disciples had lost their way, _had_ that cost the world the Ashes? What of the Blade of Mercy? It was Trefir who took the Blade from Hessarian’s hands, and it was Torrir who brought the Blade to the Disciples for safekeeping before leading the Blades to their current, hidden home in the Storm Coast. Torrir died along the way.

The Blades may have lived because of him.

What had happened in these mountains?

Travelling by day was hard, but travelling by night was more suspicious. There were too many people, too many who would notice. Besides, she’d let herself use the sun in the Blightlands - she’d needed it. The comfort of the rocky foothills had let her keep to it, lulled by the almost-familiar. A line of people - she’d sought them out to hear another voice.

After that conversation, she let herself drift further back. He didn’t say anything, focused on the Temple ahead.

Seven more people passed her, and she could hear oxen behind.

It was too much. Too much information in so few words. _‘Information can be a blessing. It can also be a curse. Know what to listen for, boy! You don’t yet, but you have to learn. You can’t remember everything.’_

“I know, Olem,” she murmured to her caustic friend. He’d always been enough older than her to get away with calling her ‘boy’ or giving advice. He’d gotten married by now, surely.

_‘What do you know? Whit, there’s more to life than our history. You need to know the present, too.’_

A child gave her a strange look, but was pulled away by her mother. “Come along, now.”

Whit noticed the Trade-tongue, but only barely. “Maybe I should have. But there were only so many hours. I chose the past and the blade.”

**

Haven, in the lore of the Blades, was the home of the Disciples. They had been close, once, but they both needed the freedom of forgetfulness. That closeness faded over the centuries. She knew the paths, she even knew a few phrases that would let the Disciples know it was a Blade, a fellow believer, who came.

There were two problems with this. One was that the Blades last had contact with the Disciples over a hundred thirty years ago. The last ‘Age’ had been cruel to the Blades, and they couldn’t risk the discovery of the Temple. That was for the Disciples to decide, and they had chosen to step away from the world and the heresy of power and time.

She had no idea whether any of her pass-phrases would work, and given rumors of dragon cults...whether the Disciples themselves had fallen to different heresies.

The second problem was better known, if not understood, until she hid in the mountains from the teeming mass of people travelling. The Temple had been _found_ by the Slayer of Urthemiel years ago. Many Disciples died, killed when the Slayer challenged them. Most of the Disciples, were she to guess, though it sounded like the Ashes themselves had still been safeguarded. The Temple had its own secrets. Why the Slayer had been allowed to find them was something the eldest and youngest of the Blades speculated about during quiet evenings or blizzards.

Just because the Slayer had didn’t mean that those who came after were also worthy. It didn’t stop them from trying. The people - the _people!_

Instead of continuing along her path, she huddled in the fall comfort of mountains so like her home on the other side of Ferelden. Here she could forage for nuts and berries, set snares that would sometimes deliver fennec. Other times, her only rewards were blood spatters and wolf tracks.

The mountains provided, when you knew their ways. There was plenty of autumn bounty for a lone traveller.

Whit sighed and turned the spit, letting the scent of roasted fat spark into the air. The roots were charring in their dug pocket beneath the wood; a plentiful meal awaited tonight. In the distance, _something_ fought briefly over the offal and skin. No business of hers. The only advantage of being a day and a half south of the main path is that animals here knew fire meant people - and arrows.

She sighed. “Not that I have any arrows. Maybe I should have learned to hunt that way after all, Pollen.”

The old man snorted his opinion of that in her memory before she sniffed again, banishing him.

The crisp scent of leaves and pine had replaced the combined odors of sweat and incense she encountered with the pilgrims.

It wasn’t even the clean sweat of combat, spiced by the tang of blood-taught lessons. It was the sweat of people struggling with travel - the same sweat she’d been covered with for so long. Meals carried rather than hunted, fat lost to a misguided faith…

“It is faith, at least,” she mused. The Chantry wasn’t what she’d expected. “They have verses wrong, and have lost the meanings of others to Trade, but it’s not all bad.”

Wasn’t it? Was faith perverted worse than faith lost entirely?

“They believe, even if what they believe isn’t what was true. The Chantry helps people - but it also Marches against those who acknowledge its faults, its move from the truth of Andraste’s word.”

Was it done yet? No, that was hunger speaking. 

“How many people are in Haven now? What has been done to the place?”

 _Had_ they found the secrets of the Temple? No, surely not. The dragon was gone, the Disciples hunted and killed...at least, those who stayed to fight. Whit knew that ‘knowledge’ in the world outside the Blades wasn’t always truth.

_‘Whit, my son…’_

She bit her lip. “Even within our sheath, sometimes we don’t always let truth counter desire. I’m sorry, Daddy.”

How bad had it gotten?

Her dinner held no answers, but it was tasty. The secrets of the Temple…

“They say,” this time in the Tevene of Trefir and his fellows, “that the Disciples had turned to heresy. They say the Disciples were always heretics. They say that the Slayer of Urthemiel found the Sacred Ashes, and a poisoned, demon-ridden man was healed.” 

Whit blinked. _“Can_ the Bride’s Ashes heal?” The little they had written on the Disciples were about the people and their sacred duty, not mystical powers of the relic they guarded. She watched the patterns swirl in the thin wisps of smoke. It was green wood tonight, but she needed nothing more than heat to cook her dinner. Now, all she needed was to let it die.

 _‘Does it matter?’_ She smiled at Cameron’s practicality.

“No, not really. The secrets of the Temple, though. Those matter. The Sword matters. The Ashes matter. There are tests. Traps. Trials. Some of them were written.”

Trials of faith. _‘Tests of knowledge, a path guarded by the faithful of both today and the past. At Haven, they recognized the Crest of Mercy. The Revered Father said that was enough to approach, but I would need more than the Crest beyond.’_

Knowledge, she might have.

Trials of faith? Faith in what? The Maker and his Bride, certainly. Faith in her own purpose? That was uncertain. Faith that she knew what was right? 

She sighed at the flickering embers. “We’ll see.”

_‘...guarded by the faithful of both today and the past.’_

“Tomorrow will not wait on your approval,” she repeated the old adage. It was true, but she could dither indefinitely. She had already spent too long debating - debating what, she wasn’t sure. The weather would only get colder, and her boots had thinned over the months, the tough hide finally admitting the passage of time and more miles than she could count.

“To Haven, then.”

And of the tests within the Temple that she didn’t know of?

_‘Listen, look - even feel. Pray. Doubt is part of life. Question everything. Certainty is death.’_

“Trefir, guide me.”

Trefir didn’t speak any more than Andraste did. The prayer and day of quiet still helped. 

“Back to the road, I guess,” Whit sighed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Warriors bleed like slaves before; slaves find iron blades iron-forged  
Against the Blight-weakened Imperium, we see your once-gold throne  
Bound by Chant, by forlorn hope, by promise wrought in deeper love  
To your side, Maker, your city, we return to you above  
Maker, I see you! Your gaze is my soul, smile is my heart-song  
Within your sight, I promise: your song sung by those in great throng  
From Tevinter’s northern home  
Almarri southern lands roved  
East to west, melody long  
Seas carry chant over the tide.**

**

The people only thickened as she rejoined the path to Haven, a vast stew of them. They all spoke Trade, but there were so many voices and accents mixed with the braying of donkeys, oxen, and shouting children. Whit shied toward the outskirts, joining the handful of others who looked like hunters, war-spooked soldiers, or possibly bandits. One gave her an assessing look before determining that there was nothing of value worth taking.

Whit didn’t mind the assessment. She  _ was  _ nothing of value, and carried less. She had  _ some  _ coin tucked deep into her bag and cloth-wrapped under her armor, scavenged from the Blightlands, but what use was silver or copper here? Besides, as grimy and worn as she looked despite her best efforts to keep herself and her equipment clean, who would believe she had anything to spare?

Not her ‘fellow travellers.’

A hum slowly made itself known, setting a low counterpoint to the chaos on Whit’s left. It wasn’t too much further…

_ ‘There is a double-bend of the track, just past rocks shaped like a mabari on alert. It looks like a run-off for spring floods. Be wary, and keep the Crest visible. The Disciples, their long vigil at the forefront, are inclined to make a judgement before asking questions.’ _

Whit kept the medallion around her neck tucked deep under her armor. With the Chantry present, it presented more danger than anything else.

The rock stood out, a darker traveller stranded along the mountainside at some point. The double-bend was a road now rather than the track it had been, but the match to the histories was still reassuring.

Then she passed the second bend. This was no sleepy village. Whit stopped in shock. There was the chapel, now a Chantry, up against the hill. It had been expanded once - no, possibly twice. The newer stone and wood stood out, sharp-edged against what time had softened.

“First time, lad?”

She whirled to face one of the hunters, hand on one of her axes. He held up his own hands.

“Easy, lad. I’ll not harm you.” With a piercing look, the man nodded firmly. 

His words came slowly as he picked through what he wanted to say. His voice - it almost had a cadence she recognized. It wasn’t Almarri, but - perhaps a cousin. Those now? She couldn’t remember what the tribes called themselves, but he was certainly big enough to be of that line. His hands were nearly the size of her head, and he towered over her, even more than Daddy.

“For all the Chantry’s claim, there is nothing given in this place. Everything has a cost. For those used to cities and towns, there are no choices. For the likes of us…” He shrugged.

Slowly, she nodded. He was also used to layers of meaning within words. “The mountains can provide.”

That drew a quick grin. “Aye, that, but you have to get far enough away so the townsfolk don’t see you.”

_ ‘The Temple has secrets as well as trials.’ _

Were they all found?

“Thank you.”

Getting away from Haven would not be the challenge. Convincing her feet to move her  _ into  _ the ‘quiet village’ would be.

**

Eventually, her feet  _ did  _ move. It took an extra two days in a little glade first, looking in at the anthill where the Disciples should have been. The Temple - the Temple would be here, but it would also be covered in pilgrims and other Chantry folk. She needed to know what they had found. It was important.

_ Andraste, don’t let me have come in vain. We are still Blades, your blade.  _

Whit rejoined the surge of people at the edges of the road into Haven - there were so many, she didn’t get more than a few sidelong glances as they passed timeworn carvings in the rock to either side. She didn’t look at them long - she couldn’t afford to look too different.

What did others see? Hopefully nothing more than she wanted to share. Unfortunately, she doubted she was so lucky. It meant she got a few looks from the guards in red and white, others heavily armored with the Sword etched onto their armor, and pilgrims alike. 

Walking into the town didn’t make things easier. Town? City? She wasn’t sure what to call this place. She was overwhelmed by the crush of everything around her, more than she could understand or eliminate. It was too much. Too much noise, too many people, too many scents, different buildings, different clothes, different accents. It wasn’t just Trade she heard now, but she didn’t recognize the rest.

Whit let the stallkeeper steal coin that wasn’t truly hers to get a mug of something that wouldn’t muddy her mind too much and a pastry that was more bread than meat. It was spiced differently than she was accustomed to; they brought something from further away to change it to what the other pilgrims would find comforting.

_ That’s a lot of trade,  _ her thoughts kept up the dialogue she was used to as she tucked herself into a corner and out of the flow of others to eat.  _ So many people - so many of the Chantry, so many feet. What could stay hidden from all of this? _

It wasn’t until she was licking the last juices off her fingers that the answer came.

_ The Ashes. _

If the Chantry hadn’t found the Ashes, then what else could also have remained protected by the Disciples, living and dead?

Maybe there was a chance.

_ ‘Fear, doubt, and their blessed child hope. It was the last that Andraste called out of us. It is why we believed. It is why we followed.’ _

She had no choice but to hope. It was that or accept that everything was lost.

Once the sun slipped past the peaks to the west, Whit had enough shadows to let them claim her from the edge of the town. The guards weren’t concerned about one weary boy; they watched for thieves and tricksters, smugglers and criminals.

Or so she’d been told by those who’d left the Blades and returned.

_ ‘You don’t want to be a threat, son.’  _ The light voice was laced with her own bitterness, but there hadn’t been anything but spare amusement at the time.  _ ‘It’s why we do well. We don’t look threadbare enough to be desperate, nor polished enough to be wealthy. We still have the souls of slaves freed, and we vanish among the others. When you’re old enough, you’ll see.’ _

Her mother had once had a lyrical quality to the tales she told. It was why she was a scholar; the Tevene flowed naturally, full of richness that everyone could follow. The others who believed themselves free as opposed to those like the Blades who had bought their freedom with servitude - ‘others’ was a rich word with the right inflection. What had she meant by souls?

To have a soul was to be thinking, but it was also to be an individual, it was to know that you were not truly your own, that the Maker would call you - or that a powerful enough mage could enslave you beyond even death, should they desire. A soul...a soul was who you  _ were.  _ People had souls.  _ A people  _ had a soul.

_ The information she likely sought was at the Chantry. _

It had been a Chantry for the Disciples - they had adopted some of the same language the Chantry used, over the centuries. Revered Mothers, Revered Fathers, the Chantry...pilgrims had brought it, and given names to what the dedicated followers had left nameless.

“In either case, there should be something there.”

_ What was this Chantry actually about? _

The last was murmured deep in that tangle of doubt twined around her heart. The seed had sprouted, thanks to her time in that nameless village. Whit wasn’t sure she was ready for whatever fruit it would bear, but there would be more to find. The old Chantry was still there. The additions didn’t mask the ancient stone. That meant that the Disciples might have left something. For all she knew, the Blade of Mercy was here, in the Chantry of the Disciples, rather than the Temple itself. 

Whit steeled herself, swallowed, and approached.

It was easy enough to slip into the mass of people. She noticed the faintly pitying looks from a few of the passersby, including those standing in armor. What did they see? A young, wide-eyed man trying to keep from being touched? A...woman?

At the door was an armored figure, a sword driven into flame on her chest. Her. It took two glances, but Whit was sure. The Blades didn’t use armor that heavy, and the sword worried her.  _ Templar.  _ It was not the more frightening mark of the Inquisition from centuries ago or the Seekers who followed them, but still she was wary.

“The Chantry is open to all,” the woman said, confirming it. “Enter if you will.”

Her voice was bored. So many came - the one man of the mountains said everything cost here, and yet - that didn’t seem to be the case for this Chantry, no more than the other she’d found. She wondered. Had he ever tried to enter? If he did not follow Andraste, he would have no reason to do more than come close enough to sell his furs and buy what his Hold needed. After all, she’d returned to the homes of the Avvar...descendents or cousins of the Almarri. The Lady and Korth would still be worshipped here, as well as the lesser gods of each Hold.

A few others were entering the Chantry even so late, andmore were leaving. She sidestepped once she passed the heavy bronze doors, looking around. Incense, old and new, layered over the place. The new, she could almost recognize from her days in the other Chantry months ago. The old was an earthier scent, one with sharp pine and bitter myrrh touched by cedar. There was something else, but it was too faint for a name. Whit opened her mouth to taste it, hoping.

She didn’t need to hope any longer. Her tongue knew the answer her nose had hesitated on. The last scent mixed in with the rest was old blood.

It was  _ old,  _ even the taste almost gone from the air around her. It stopped the quick splash of sleet down her spine.

“Can I help you, my...child?”

Her eyes snapped over to a woman not old enough to call her ‘child,’ even if she was no longer young. Pollen’s age, if she had to guess. Lines told of her experience, but they were softer than any Blade’s. Her hands were that of a midwife and butter-smooth with carefully trimmed nails.

She was no threat - yet that made her more threatening than those clanking in steel and veridium outside - or standing by the entrance to the sanctuary.

“I...don’t know.”

The wrinkles by her eyes multiplied before she smoothed them out. The woman wasn’t sure what to make of her, Whit decided. It wasn’t the openly measuring gaze she was accustomed to, but that didn’t hide the sense of being measured.

Whit forced herself to relax a little. When the woman gestured, she followed. The books lining the alcoves drew her attention, but she kept her eyes forward. So she thought.

“You’re more than welcome to read anything you’d like, of course. We don’t hide knowledge. Some of these books only live here, though we’ve sent copies of the texts to Val Royeaux.”

She nodded back.

The sanctuary here - Whit could feel the difference. There were marks on the floor that scrubbing failed to erase and tapestries hung at odd intervals, likely to cover up further signs of ‘heresy.’ Her eyes flickered around, but there was little left of the original furnishings and nothing that would tell her how to reach what might be kept out of the way. The candle-light and newer statue of Andraste cast strange shadows, hiding anything the remaining carvings might admit.

In either case, she knelt when she had a chance, sitting back on her knees and watching the flickers of the scented candles before the visage of the Chantry’s version of Andraste. Her escort left her with a murmured blessing, and went back to her duties.

_ Andraste, what do you want me to learn here? This has been your place for centuries - and now I find it has been claimed by those who altered your words and hunted your Faithful. _

There was no answer, but she didn’t expect the Bride to speak directly into  _ her  _ heart. She was just a Blade, just one misfit attempting to do what she could, inexperienced and afraid.

_ Andraste, let me follow your path. Trefir, help me question. Help me seek the truth deeper than knowledge. _

The Chant kept on in the loft above and behind her - someone, it seemed, was always speaking it here in Haven. It made sense, perhaps.

They had sung the Chant for a while, but the melody was Almarri and uncomfortable to ‘civilized’ nations. It had shifted some, but was still there for a familiar ear to follow. The cadence was wrong with words in Trade, even the few that had kept some of the true impact.

They didn’t realize how the Chant in Almarri flowed and created their own heartbeat when chanted, one that spoke to the soul. The translation was a pale shadow of what it was meant to be. It wasn’t just the changed words and cut sections that left gaping flaws in the whole, but that Trade lacked the depth to carry the true meaning of some parts.

Trade - she’d managed so far, but it was awkward again. So long had she been in the Blightlands with only her true tongues, she’d almost forgotten the cadence of the dwarven creation.

_ ‘I look up _ _   
_ _ And your stars remain.’ _

Some parts, she admitted, were beautiful. It was still a challenge to hear and more to try translate it - she was slow and stupid, here among the peoples of the South.

“My...child. Do you have a place to sleep? It is late.”

Whit blinked, taken from her private thoughts. “What?”

The man, also dressed in blood-and-snow, blinked. He tried again. “A place to sleep. To rest. Have you found somewhere safe? The inns are expensive, and you have been praying past dark.” His words were much slower, carefully pronounced. If she wasn’t so grateful, she might have been insulted. Trade was hard enough to follow without his slurring accent added to the mix.

She sat back on her heels, considering. “I would be grateful for a bed.” Whit tried to keep her words just as carefully pronounced, certain that he would have as difficult a time understanding her as she had him.

He smiled, teeth white against a face dark by blood and not sun. “Come this way. In late autumn, we don’t have many who need a bed. Most are already returning to their homes before snowfall.”

She blinked.

Before...ah, yes. The words she’d missed began to make sense. This was a Haven with  _ few  _ travellers? The thought of arriving during summer made her stomach clench. Instead of speaking, she nodded and pushed herself back to her feet, following him to a thin stone room and a bed.

“I have coin. Some.”

He waved his hand. “You may speak to the Revered Mother in the morning, or donate it as you leave, but the offer was made with no price. Few pray with no sense of time, even the pilgrims. The Faithful are to be protected. Sleep well, and may Andraste watch over you.”

She nodded back. “Thank you.”

The Faithful? No, surely he didn’t mean what she heard.  _ Surely  _ not, not in the breast of the Chantry that had tried to destroy the Blades and had killed the remaining Disciples.  _ The Faithful.  _

Sleep came slowly in the dark, especially with the constant hum of people just outside. After tossing and turning, Whit gave up and put on her boots again. The Father’s words rang in her head. Father, right? No - something else. The  _ man,  _ anyway, had said one phrase that stuck like tar.  _ The Faithful.  _ She needed to find the secrets of this place. They were here, she was sure of it. Her boots were as silent as stockinged feet, after the wear they’d taken.

So long as she avoided the sanctuary, there were few eyes. She passed a couple curious Chantry workers, but nothing that she needed to worry about. There would be something here. Surely there would.

The books remained in the main hall: they would be of the Chantry, probably? She went there first. They were a mix of old and new. The oldest, based on age-cracks in the leather binding, were still in an unfamiliar tongue when she opened them.

She sighed.

There may be something here, hidden in the recesses the Disciples would have built - there also might be nothing. What could she learn from books she couldn’t read, or the believed lies of the Chantry around her?

_ ‘May my doubt be pure.’ _

She could at least learn what the Chantry believed now, and believed of this place.  _ If  _ she could read them. Since she couldn’t, she put them back with care and kept looking. In the darkness, it was easier to see the carvings that light and busyness hid during the day. Some of what she looked for was missing and other carvings defaced, but in the area used as a main hall, many remained. Perhaps they had not been noticed? Why would they be seen? To anyone else, they were random.

To a Disciple or Blade, they had meaning. There was a flame, soft-etched into what was left of a larger carving. It had been scrubbed with grit to remove it - this, then, was something left of the Disciples.  _ Andraste’s  _ flame, the same as Cameron had on one half of his ring. Excitement beat in her heart as she casually glanced around.

No one.

Her ears strained, but she only heard wild laughter from outside, deeply muffled by the layers of stone.

_ The walls were not just stone. _

The Almarri knew stone, and did not need to carve it as thick as those of thinner blood. The dwarves could mask it and the echoes - and had taught some of the Tribes, long ago.  _ ‘Stonecraft is a lot art, but the Disciples remembered for a time. Everything of Haven is built to protect what the Disciples guard. They guard the relics of truth, we guard them and bear the weight of Andraste’s mercy.’ _

She traced the flame, murmuring one of the watchwords. “ _ Vigilance.” _

It would have done nothing, she suspected, in Trade.

In Almarri, it carried the weight of the Disciples’ self-imposed duty, eternal and lonely. In Almarri...a stone shifted, exposing a narrow passage coated in dust and cobwebs. The opening was still in shadow, but she had only a little time before her trespass would be noticed.

Light would not help; it would simply set the detritus of time alight. She stepped through. On the other side was another mark. Traced again, and the door closed itself. Faint light trickled through carefully-wide gaps between stone higher up, letting her look around without risking a flame. This was too narrow to walk easily, but she was not large. Angling her shoulders, she moved forward.

There were books here - four of them - stacked on top of a small hardwood chest bound by silverite.

These books weren’t spelled, yellowed and cracked, but they were all she had. She opened one to wherever it fell.

_ ‘We cannot drive it away. So long - she calls to the heart, to what is wild and free in our Almarri blood. I fear.’ _

She turned more pages.

_ ‘...is lost. The Revered Mother has not returned from her trip to the Temple of Sacred Ashes; only the Revered Father did. He said she stayed in prayer. I doubt, because she said she would show me another of the secrets here. Some are passed down only to the chosen successor. What secrets the Revered Father has…’ _

_ ‘I don’t know. Her journals and the few things I could slip into the chest, I’ll hide myself. Andraste, may your light shine pure. Vigilance without action or new blood is too much for mortal men. Guide us. Guard us.’ _

_ ‘Blood - I have been taught the techniques. This secret will stay safe, even if the forbidden magics are unearthed. Maker, forgive me my doubts. The desperation that has infected us this past generation is hard to see past. Guide us.’ _

There were no other entries.

They  _ had  _ fallen to dragon-worship.

_ ‘In desperation...without action…’ _

“Without new blood? That means...the Blades and Disciples were close. Closer than we remember.” They had needed the Blades, but the Blades had to flee from the Chantry - and they had never truly returned.

_ Why not? _

**

Days passed, the journals tucked into her own pack rather than left to the risk of discovery. She prayed they would hold until she could get them back to the Blades and the preservation spells of their mages. 

The Chantry was easier to deal with in its measured calm than the mass of people outside. Pilgrims, the armored warriors of the Chantry, thieves, and merchants filled the hardpacked streets and killed the grass that dared to grow in the village. Whit snorted at herself, amused that a  _ Blade  _ was finding shelter in a Chantry - but it was only because she feared the undisciplined others.

The Chantry might be cruel, but it was not capricious.

Then again - as she used the unexpected hospitality, she saw pilgrims find peace, the needy find comfort. Those who tended to the place did not offer space to all: only those they thought could not fend for themselves.

Of course, they were sometimes wrong. After all, she had been offered the same ‘sanctuary’ as offered to children, or the pregnant, or elderly, or the faithful too poor to do more than watch the innkeeper cook. The food, as before, was simple, but filling enough.

She washed her clothes, ate their food, and struggled to learn.   
  
The ‘Chant’ they used was not what she knew. Despite that, she listened to the Trade tongue until she got a headache, until repetition started to make the unknown words make a little more sense. There was always someone in robes that reminded her of bloody snow to explain the words she missed.

‘Slow,’ one said to another in a whisper, as though her hearing was as bad as her ability to understand Trade.

‘A foreigner,’ came another reply.

Neither were true - but neither were exactly false.

A lump formed in her throat, swallowed down. Whit focused again, this time on the people who tended to the building and the people who came in. They weren’t fanatics; not most of them, at least. The one who’d invited her had a gentleness to her faith that she’d never seen among the Blades, while the man with the cinnamon hair had the same focus on detail as Gidgit.

They were people.

It wasn’t a monolith.

Of course it wasn’t - she should have known. That didn’t change what they could do. If she hadn’t realized what an Exalted March could do, she at least knew how little she understood now. There were so  _ many  _ who believed the Chantry. So many believed enough that they came here to see what they couldn’t find.

One of the journals - it mourned what had been.

_ ‘The Blades would send pilgrims, at times. Some had faith enough to look past what they were taught.’ _

Almost no one back home would believe it. Had she not spent time here, it would have been incomprehensible. But now? She could understand, almost. Almost, probably...it frustrated her, what was still out of reach. Nothing quite made sense.

The charity, she understood. The structure - well, the Blades had structure and discipline. What she still didn’t understand was the drive to call others ‘heretics’ and try to kill them. The  _ Chantry  _ was the organization who changed Andraste’s words, and they called others heretics for holding to her words? Oh, certainly there were others that didn’t believe, or only wanted to use the faith of others, but to seek out those who might have history they had lost - it worried her.

Her father’s face, her mother’s lies…

Perhaps.

In either case, she needed quiet. Whit stayed awake until dawn greyed the window. Then, in the isolation of the space between night and day, she fled.

This time, though, it was less flight from, and more flight to.

Her promise to the others to bring back the sword was a part of it. That was the part she would admit, as the dried leaves crinkled beneath her feet and released their crisp promise; they’d fallen as she listened.

The rest was that she wanted to speak to him. She’d have to leave soon enough. Her people - she couldn’t stay here forever.

Could she?

No, she decided. It would be easy enough, but being a Blade wasn’t about what was easy, but what was needed. The sword - Hessarian’s sword - was needed. It had been for longer than her memory reached back.

Even if these people could accept that she fought - and was female - they were not her own. She was a  _ Blade.  _ She would not abandon her own. Some answers were here.

Others could only be found at the Temple.

_ They had turned to dragon worship.  _

_ How? _


	6. Chapter 6

**Imprisoned dreamers, dreams of hope, of mountain-gods free roaming  
Chains of blood-ties deeper than blood-born magic calling, forming  
Hopes that spring from deepest memories, seeking freedom-sworn oath.  
Fear the cage, fear caging dreamers, doubt the jailor, seeking truth -  
From fear came doubt - doubt dreamed your calling, from the calling, born hope.  
Maker, hear me as I heard you: free-roaming, I am come home.  
Now what is your next calling  
I seek your voice, needing truth  
Heart-born, not Tevinter tome.  
Love-called, your lover seeks to find.**

**

The mountains welcomed her as she paced along cuts between the boulders. Then she used hands as well as her thin-soled boots to climb up.

_ ‘The Temple is beyond, carved into rock. Parts of it are easy to find; the Revered Fathers may enter. There are other passages, other doors. Some of those will answer to the Crest.’ _

Every Blade wore the Crest of Mercy somewhere. Olem had it tattooed across his back - he was always one to brag, the fool.  _ ‘It’s so I can’t lose it again.’  _ Gidgit chose to wear it shaved into her scalp behind her left ear, and her the blade of her boot knife had been etched with it. Cameron had a ring, the crest carefully drawn along one side of the wide band, and a simple flame on the other.

Whit wore hers around her neck, a gift when she’d turned eight.  _ ‘It was mine, once. It is yours now. I carry the Crest against my heart.’ _

Her mother had made the change; why, Whit didn’t know.

It didn’t matter, she supposed. Her mother was gone and she still wore the Crest. Daddy had never seen a reason to demand she carry it another way. Why would he?

The flood of people went one way in the mornings. From her vantage, she followed, her worn leathers blending into the tree trunks and slate of the mountain itself. No one looked up. Why would they? They knew where they were going. The Temple - the Temple that was not theirs - and they couldn’t understand.

The main entrance she could see had been forced open to all, violated by those who followed the Slayer of Urthemiel. There was a scholar, wasn’t there? A man who’d puzzled out the secrets and displayed their wreckage for anyone to read? The stories had been told in anger and disgust, but that was years ago now. She’d still been waiting for her mother’s return then.

That was before she’d realized her mother wouldn’t return.

In dusk, the mountains were almost like her own. The exceptions were found by fingers and the edges of shadow, highlighting lines no water had carved. The Chantry didn’t know what to look for. They hadn’t recognized those at the valley opening. They wouldn’t know what to look for here. Civilized lowlanders wouldn’t seek information carved into stone. She knew. It was one of her milk-tongues, the spirals and arrow-footed lines. They led her, sign by covert sign, toward where the rest of the Temple had stood.

It stood still, tucked into the living stone and cliffs of the Frostbacks. The disorder was  _ just  _ angular enough to be deliberate by those who knew each peak as a friend. The sigil was made by the angled walls and the shadows they cast.  _ Faith.  _ Yes. Generations of faith, a promise for generations more.

It was here.

There were no signs of the Chantry - this way, this part, had not been forced open.

So how to reach it?

There was a ravine now, cut steeply between two peaks. Scars tore through the edges, and the fresh color of new rockfalls showed where it remained unstable. Whit looked down carefully; it wasn’t truly straight, but there were few hand-holds. Over on the other side, there were fewer yet - but one narrow ledge ran ten feet below where she stood.

“The only problem, Gidgit, is it’s on the other side.”

It was  _ Gidgit  _ who should be here; she was the mountain goat as well as a budding healer. Was it magic or skill with poultice and herb? The Blades didn’t care.

“So how to get there?”

She would know, but she was back home. The light was dimming - this was when she should be making herself a nest of leaves to think it over, or possibly a good cave. Bats would begin to head out for their own scavenging soon.

She could wait, and see what dawn would reveal. She  _ should  _ wait. “I don’t want to wait this time.”

Her life had been built on waiting. Instead of waiting yet again, she tightened her pack against her hips, checked the loops that held her axes, and took two steps back. She closed her eyes, breathing in the mountain air. 

“If I fail, I’ll have home around me.”

She wouldn’t, not really, but it was the closest to home she’d seen.

Breathing in sharply through her nose, she opened her eyes, took three long steps, gathered herself - and leapt.

One hand caught a crevice, costing her the flesh on that finger.

Her left scrabbled, then dug into the top of the ledge just long enough to let her torso and legs slam into the side of the cliff. There was little time, as her right hand moved, blood-slick, from where she needed it.

One toe found a spur the size of a child’s hand.

Gripping the cliff with fingers, knees, and even her belly, Whit breathed in damp stone and fallen leaves. 

_ ‘Fear is a powerful motivation.’ _

“You’re right, Daddy,” she whispered against the stone. “It is.”

Fear of failure and the stubborn refusal to do so held her where she was. It was something else, something built on hours of extra weapons practice and years learning to live through pain, that made her foot move higher, push her up.

Slowly, she pulled herself onto the ledge. Her eyes widened.

There, barely revealed in the last rays of the mountains’ quick dusk, was the Crest, faint-carved into the rock before her nose.

_ “ _ Trefir _ ,”  _ she breathed. None but the foolish, brave, or desperate would have made that leap. None but a Blade would recognize the Crest, visible only from inches away. For the first time since she started the journey, she pulled at the chain around her neck. Blood oozed into the links, but it didn’t matter. She pulled out the Crest and pressed it against the one in front of her with a murmured prayer - and then one of the pass phrases she’d read before leaving.

The stone didn’t change.

Whit closed her eyes, defeated, and rested her head against it. Her head passed through the emptiness her eyes had seen as solid rock strongly enough to convince her body.

_ Magic. _

_ Doubt, fear, and hope. _

Keeping her eyes closed, she let her hands and feet find their way forward, the Crest falling back against her chest. This time, she didn’t hide it.

**

The town may have been frighteningly different, but it was nothing compared to what she faced inside what she believed was part of the  _ lost  _ Temple of Sacred Ashes. ‘ _ Trials. Tests. What guards the Ashes is not just the Disciples of today, but of the past.’  _ The only advantage was that she was more comfortable with the silence.

It was not silent, though. 

A rank odor filled the quiet, sealed halls, crept along passages, and disturbed her sleep. It was a thing of this world, not the divine - but it was old. 

How had the Disciples failed their duty? Would the Blades as well? Had their time come to an end?

Her dreams continued to ask unanswerable questions.

_ Had they failed already?  _

The next was a whisper of fear.  _ How is what Daddy is doing following Trefir’s guidance, or Andraste’s? _

No. Whit turned her mind from her doubts. They still drove her up from her cocoon of blankets, tucked in a small alcove. There was no place to train, so instead she listened to those doubts as well as what the stone itself told her as she paced the long-forgotten halls. Her footfalls were eaten by this place, but there were skitters and the thin wail of the wind was enough to make her shiver with its promise of ice. The Temple’s deep aura of reverence was frayed worse than her clothing and more worn than the remnants of her boots. That scent - she’d set it aside last night, too weary to be concerned with old mysteries. Now she sniffed again. It lacked the muskiness of bear or tang of bat. There was no foulness that went with the wolverines, or the almost-sweet earthiness of a boar. Despite that - it was a predator. Only those who ate flesh left a warning smell so strong.

What had happened here?

The Ashes - it was said the Ashes had been found. Found, and then lost. There was more that those in Haven had said. Until now, Whit had discounted it.

A dragon.

Was  _ that  _ the musk that filled this place? Dragons? How could the Disciples have fallen after over seven centuries of vigilance to the siren call of the Tevene practices?

Whit left her axes in their loops as she walked. The stone-scent was stronger than the other odors, so it was not an immediate threat. If it warmed, she would worry. A slight spill of light came from an arch ahead and on the left - it didn’t flicker like fire would. The shadow was so faint, but she approached.

A room.

_ “Welcome, pilgrim.”  _ The hollow voice made her draw back. A figure she hadn’t noticed wavered in the dim light around her. She realized that wasn’t it, not with armor that had symbols she recognized etched along it.

This was a remnant. Possibly. She looked again at the armor for clues. Despite the use of Trade, that was not this creature’s natural language. Man. It wore the form of a man and the armor of the ancient Imperium, carved over with other whorls and the lines of a fennec. 

“Greetings,” she responded in Almarri. “You are of the Faithful who guard this place?”

_ ‘The Faithful sacrificed what was needed. The Ashes would be guarded by them, even as bodies failed. The site of the Temple was of a place that allowed greater magics - and this magic would serve, not rule.’ _

That meant it could be a remnant of one who gave their life to be tied to this place forever, or a spirit called in its place.

It switched languages easily, its countenance lightening beneath a heavy, square-cut beard.  _ “Why have you come?” _

Why  _ had  _ she? She wouldn’t lie. Not to one of the Disciples willing to sacrifice their souls - or if it was something of the Fade, to what was bound for that purpose. In either case, it would see through her meager attempts. 

Why her? What was she really doing here? “I don’t know.”

Whit dropped her eyes, ashamed.

Olem would have said he was here to reclaim the Blade of Mercy. Cameron, to learn and worship. Gidgit always had a dozen reasons, and would have cheerfully offered all of them. Even old Pollen, his heart still burning with purpose, would have demanded the right to restore this place and bring the Disciples and Blades together again.

But her?

Was she here to escape Daddy, to find a way to earn his pride? Or was she looking for a way to kill him - or to kill herself?

The figure didn’t blink.  _ “When you have discovered the answer, you may tell me.” _

**

There was food to be found in the halls, and Whit had blankets and clothes taken from the dead or fled who would never dare the Blightlands to reclaim them. Roots and lichen weren’t the most flavorful, but the small furry animals helped. Twice, she made her way back out the twisting passages to collect herbs and a few late-autumn fruits. She’d found another door that also opened to what she knew that let her out in a tiny valley. As the season turned, she was driven back into the Temple.

Why had she come?

The guardian never moved from his vigil, never blinked - and never demanded answers. He had only the one question for her, and would wait for its answer.

There was so much she didn’t know. Whit knew she didn’t know enough, hadn’t studied enough, wasn’t ready. But none of that mattered now. “Why am I here?” 

Olem’s voice laughed in her mind.  _ ‘You’re not serious, are you? Boy, half a year later’s not the time to realize what you got yourself into. Or did you forget? Did the Chantry drive sense outta your head?’  _

“No, I’m here for the Blade. I said that. It’s why I came.” She swore to find the Blade of Mercy, the Hessarian’s Blade. “But what will the blade itself do? What can it fix?” There were so many things…

Her Daddy’s anger.

The things he’d done, the challenger left broken and dead, were harder to forget now that she was alone with her thoughts.

_ ‘We are the blade, not the hand that wields it.’  _ Some among the Blades believed that firmly and let whoever led do the thinking, let the scholars give the lessons. Others questioned. It was  _ easy  _ to give responsibility to another, easy to claim that obedience absolved you of guilt.

Her one lie was the the one she inherited from her mother and kept to protect Daddy’s pride. 

The Blade of Mercy would not change that. It wouldn’t bring her mother back. It wouldn’t answer  _ why.  _ But it was all she had. She’d swore it. Maybe it would make her gender not matter to Daddy? But would it change him? Or, for that matter, her?

Here, the Tevene and Almarri suited the echoes and somber stone in a way they didn’t belong in the newer, more direct spaces of Ferelden. She didn’t have the voice for a tune, but she chanted the stanzas she’d known in Almarri, subtly different from those used by the ‘true’ Chantry on her way. The words echoed back, the dynamics shifting. It shifted the meaning slightly - so much was carried by tone in Almarri. It was why the Chant was still debated, even among the Blades who knew it. Every subtle difference could have meaning - or it could have been meant in each way. The Chant was from Andraste to the Maker. It was not all meant to be understood on this side of death.

When the quiet twisted in her stomach, she loosened her axes and spun through the patterns, attacking the cobwebs and shadows that moved with her. In the valley, she worked each time she cut a tree to place the blows one atop the other. The snows came - the valley filled with them - but she forced aching legs through to collect what she needed.

The halls smelled less of dragon and more of smoke and meat as she stretched the ram hide over a fragrant fire, working the hide with a smoothed piece of wood and what fat the thing had kept. The rams here were shaggier than she was used to; did that mean winters were usually more harsh, or that nature had told them this one would be?

“What secrets did you keep?”

Pollen shook his head.  _ You tell me. _

So she did. “It had plenty of fat - I’d expect that this time of year. Plenty means either a good autumn or long winters. It wasn’t afraid of me - I was able to come from above and use my axe. Despite how close this is to Haven, it hasn’t been hunted.” She chewed her lip. It was young, plenty of fat, and the valley snows were up to her knees. She’d have to cut down another tree.

“Heavier winters,” she decided. “This place must have more snow and ice. The Temple was made into the mountain, and it’s a larger set of mountains.” Unlike at home, these weren’t rocky cliffsides but mountains in truth. Well, she had her ragged blankets, her bedroll, and now enough leather to make a proper pallet and get her aching bones off of the cold stone.

None of this helped her solve her problems.

What did she want? Why was she here?

**

Daddy laughed and spun him up and around. “You’re still so little, Whitling! Maybe we should have named you something grander.”

He giggled back, getting a hug. “I’ll grow as big as you!”

“Of course you will! You’re my son! A son - you’ll be something special, you will.” Then he set Whit back down on the ground. “Come on, let’s go. There’s meat to be gotten, and the fish are spawning. They’re never stupider than now, and full of roe. Catch them when they’re fat and stupid, that’s what I say. The Maker made sure there would be plenty to eat.”

Mother’s voice was in the background, as reserved as always against Daddy’s booming. “Yes, Harrit, but we also need to make sure enough survive for the future. Winter is a long way away, and some need to lay eggs.”

“Grab your stick, Whitling,” he said, grinning. “We can’t eat them all, but there’s plenty to go around. You’ll see.”

“Do I get to help?”

A heavy hand mussed his cropped hair. He’d finally grown tall enough that Daddy could do it without bending down. “Sure. You can carry the basket back - even help clean them. Time and past for you to use a knife.”

He looked over at Mother, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she handed him the basket. Whit shrugged and scurried to keep up with Daddy’s long strides. Once the spears were gathered, Daddy led them out of their fortress and past logs that were taller than he could see. He knew not to make too much noise - Mother had taught him that - but Daddy didn’t worry about it. Char and Coal, frisky pups, ran ahead, noses to the ground.

“Shhh…”

Daddy laughed. “When you get to be my size, Whitling, you’ll see. There’s a reason bears make all that noise. It’s to warn off other predators. They know they’re kings of the forest - no darting about for them. Even wolves get out of their way.”

They did, usually...but he remembered Pollen’s story, about the old bear taken down by a wolf pack.  _ ‘They knew he was weak, even if he didn’t. He’d spent so long being the danger, he quit paying attention. The whole pack ate well, even the littlest pups.’ Pollen smiled. _

_ ‘Why didn’t you kill the pack?’ _

_ ‘What, Cameron, a whole pack of wolves? They’d have pulled me down just as easy. One wolf is easy, if it’s not smart. A pack of them? Nah. You’re careful around numbers. Always.’ _

He huffed as he tried to keep up, the stick and basket a lot more heavy than they were when they left the fortress.

“Come on, Whit! We’re only halfway!”

He’d do it. He’d get stronger. He’d get bigger. “Coming, Daddy!” 

He wouldn’t give up - he’d prove Daddy was right. He could be something special. 

Whit even managed to clean two fish - messy, but he was proud he had remembered to clean the one cut he’d gotten in the river water right away.  _ ‘Never let your blood fall on the ground outside the fortress, not if you can help it. The water will carry it away. On the ground, you can get sniffed out. It can be found. _

_ ‘Just like they did in Tevinter?’ _

_ Mother smiled, and he felt bigger just seeing it. ‘Good memory. Yes, a malificar can follow you that way. But more than malificar will follow blood. Wolves, bears - even other people. Never leave a trail unless you want to get caught.’ _

He remembered. They’d be proud, they would.

Then she woke up. She wasn’t Harrit’s  _ son,  _ she was Harrit’s  _ daughter.  _ Those carefree memories became nothing but goads for what she could never become, after she’d started bleeding and called out for his help. Whit’s wide eyes stared at the stone over her head, dragon spoor all around her.  _ So much anger, so much fear. One lie had caused so much doubt, once it had been revealed.  _

Her dreams held no answers. Only one place did.

**

Her eyes flicked over to the hallway she’d not walked in quite some time. Time seemed to have no meaning unless she chose to give it one.

The question was there, waiting for her.  _ ‘Why have you come?’ _

Whit sighed.

She knew why she’d come, even if she’d been too afraid to admit it.  _ Fear is the child of doubt.  _ Well, she had plenty of both. All she could do now was hope that the Sword of Mercy was still here. When she woke, Whit drug together the faint scraps of courage she’d hoarded and walked back down the hall she’d avoided since she met its lonely questioner.

The apparition was still standing where she had left it. She couldn’t think of him as an ‘it,’ though, not with his square-cut beard and dark eyes.

_ “So, traveller. Have you decided you wish to proceed?” _

Had she? Whit nodded. When he didn’t respond, she considered his armor and the ancient history the Blades worked to remember. Armor would mean...she chose Tevene over Almarri. “Yes, I wish to pass.” She pulled out her Crest. “As a Blade, I claim kinship to the Disciples.”

His eyes didn’t twinkle or narrow, and there was no frown or smile. What did he think? Did he, or did he merely have his spelled purpose here? Her moment of nervousness sank beneath her fear as he responded - also in the Tevene she knew, though accented slightly differently.

_ “It has been some time, Blade of Hessarian. What is it you seek?” _

She swallowed. His voice still echoed hollowly, even though hers did not. It was unnerving; though the Blades recognized such things, their mages had no truck with necromancy. A Blade fallen had gone to join the Maker, and those they sent beyond the Veil, they had no desire to bring back. The Disciples followed other paths. It made sense, given their purpose was to guard the dead Bride, but it still made her shudder. Even were it a choice, to spend all eternity away from the Maker was something she didn’t want to think about.

“I seek to reclaim the Blade of Hessarian, the Blade of Mercy.”

Tevene was well-suited to the ritual demands, and fit this place of forgotten stone in a way the Almarri the Blades used day-to-day would not.

A person might have shaken their head. The spirit before her left a cloud of dissatisfaction before speaking again. _ “So you say, but what is it you truly seek?” _

She had answered! Was this a test of her convictions? Anything else was private - the sword came first. It was what she’d sworn to find. “I have said: I seek to reclaim the Blade of Mercy for the Blades.”

He watched her, his eyes looking through rather than at the physical. Feeling bare before him, Whit shuddered inside, but stayed still. Why  _ she  _ had come was not important. What mattered was that she was a Blade, and the sword was hers by right.  _ Theirs  _ by right.

_ “There is more in your heart. You must find the truth of it to find what you seek. Pass, Blade. The Gauntlet you will face is not that to protect the Ashes, but nothing in this world is ever easy. May your faith be strong.” _

“May my doubt be pure,” the response automatically fell from her . 

The passage beyond shivered into view. Her own skin shivered in response. It was bad enough to have had to work through the illusion to reach the tunnels, but this sort of magic was not...comfortable. She’d need her doubt to survive, she suspected.

Doubt and faith.

_ Andraste - no, Trefir, guide me.  _ Andraste had lost her doubts in her faith. Trefir had kept both.

Whit stepped forward. Once into the passage, she glanced back out of curiosity. The spirit yet stood, unmoving.

**

What Gauntlet lay ahead? At first look, there was no difference now than before. The stones were equally time-worn, though carefully laid, the temperature still chill but manageable to one who was nurtured in different mountains. 

Looks, as Whit knew all too well, could be deceiving. Her footsteps didn’t shuffle; even the sound of her breathing was dead and faded just too quickly. Also, the musk she had decided was probably dragon had vanished entirely. She shuddered.

_ More magic. _

_ ‘There are trials and tests. Hold tight to our teachings, you who return when it is time.’ _

Was it time?

_ ‘You’d better bloody hope so, numbskull!’  _ Gidgit’s voice made her almost grin, despite the situation.

“I do, friend. I promise I do.”

Hope was a strange thing to feel here. 

She reached a small room with no apparent exits. A bed was here, sagging underneath the heavy blankets, bracketed by stone walls, a small cabinet, and a shelf against the larger wall. There was nothing else.

That couldn’t be. 

Whit felt along the stones, but they were solid to her fingers. The diffuse light showed her no regular markings to suggest a path, and when she lit a candle, there were no shadows. Closing her eyes changed nothing. The room was stubbornly  _ there.  _ The bookcase was just as stubborn, refusing to shift when she pushed and pulled to see if there was something behind it.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Dropping her pack, she dropped herself onto the bed. It didn’t creak or rustle, but still shifted slightly to accommodate her weight. “Now what?”

The room had no answers as the silence ate her voice.

She wanted to cry. If Daddy had been here, he would have destroyed something in his rage. Maybe that would work, but she couldn’t do it. Why? What would breaking something actually accomplish? There had to be something she was missing, it was just a matter of puzzling out what it was.

Surely she could.

“Well, I should go back to collect the rest of my things. I’d rather sleep on my own pallet, and the rest of what I left behind could be useful.” Like the firewood, or the other torches, or the dried pine needles so she could smell  _ something  _ in this place.

When she moved back down the passage she’d come from, she didn’t get far. It ended twenty paces further. The archway that had opened behind the apparition was gone.

Whit stared. “No. No, this can’t be right, this can’t be…” She  _ knew  _ the passage had continued another twenty-two paces, then opened back into the room, and the semi-familiar passages beyond. There was no doubt about that.

The stone that stared at her disagreed.

Frantically, she felt along the edges, tearing into her fingertips against the rough corners. It didn’t react, didn’t stop being stubbornly present even though it was impossible. Closing her eyes didn’t help. Pressing the Crest against it didn’t help.

“No!” 


	7. Chapter 7

**The war-lost, watch over them, Fade-lost wanderers seeking your light  
Guide them, I beg you; through night’s drifting, shifting roads to your side.  
For me, I fear not the darkness! In your gaze my song sings true  
The stars shine the Veil-path to heaven, your mercy balm to soothe  
Despite the heart-wound, abandon not your creation to pain  
For in your golden presence, your blessing, your beauty remains  
In creation I abide  
Your creation, we renew  
Our faith, despite fear’s black stains  
Maker, please, stem despair’s dark tide.**

**

Her scream didn’t echo, stopping oddly after it left her mouth. “No,” she whispered. She had food enough for a few days, water for maybe that. After, it would be a slow death.

Some time later, she picked herself up from her heap on the floor and made an unsteady path back to the mysterious room. The bed was still there. Whit swallowed, then took off her belt and folded it carefully to set on the table. Her axe blades didn’t shine, but she knew they were sharp all the same.

_ At least death didn’t have to be slow.  _ She shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. Faith. The spirit or ghost had said something about faith, hadn’t he? It couldn’t have been too long. He’d also said she would need to find the truth of why she sought it. Her stomach shifted, but she ignored it and had a sip of water instead. She’d been hungry before, and no doubt would again. In this timeless place, it would be too easy to eat too quickly.

Rather than think on her stomach or the sharp end to her future, Whit bent over to pull off her boots. In stocking feet, she padded to the bookshelf. There were a few texts, somehow not new, but also not destroyed by age, as well as a handful of figurines, some papers, and an empty inkwell.

Of course it was empty.

She swallowed new tears, thinking of the friends waiting for her back home. She missed all of them: Old Pollen; Gidgit and her constant muttering about herbs and wound fever; Cameron’s cutting satire; Olem’s casual humor that hid his intensity; and others in the fortress like Char and Coal. The Imperium had designed them to be more intelligent than most people, and their rangy bulk didn’t threaten her, even though they outmassed her by more than she’d admit. 

Instead of moping, she ran a finger along the shelves. What was in them, truth or lies?

What else was there to do? She took a closer look at the books. There were two in languages she couldn’t read, one where the writing itself was unfamiliar. Another had letters she could sound out, but they made no sense to her. However, there were others that were in the Tevene she’d grown up reading. Apparently either the Disciples or whatever magic ruled this place used that language as well. She took a random book from the shelf, then sat cross-legged on the bed where she could lean against the wall. Rather than disturb it further, she wrapped her blanket over her legs.

_ 7 Matrinalis _

_ This place will suit, better than we could have guessed when we found the first yawning cavern. The lyrium is raw here, but there are a few who know how to carve it out, distill it - and then it can be used. Iriene says it has more potency than any she’s tasted before, and she is one of the few who was an Altus before Andraste’s song reached her. _

_ There is wood, though no ore. Our smith is working to build a forge so we can melt some of the weapons we have and make the tools we need for our work. Until then, we are chopping trees with swords and using arrowheads to score stone for carving. It is slow, painful work. _

Whit paused.

Was this part of the history of this place, or another illusion?

“I can’t believe just from this, but it might still give answers.” Even if it wasn’t true, it was here for a reason. Surely, it was. She had to believe that much.  _ May your faith guide you.  _ She sighed, stretched for a moment, and turned the page.

At the very least, it was something to occupy her mind.

**

Time passed, probably. When hunger made her body ache, she ate. Otherwise, she read or explored the tiny space of her world. When she could do neither any longer, the twenty paces of hall plus the additional ten of the room gave just enough space to do some sprints and was frustratingly perfect for pacing. After eating two times, she woke up curled in a ball, the journal bent open on the bed next to her. 

If there was nowhere else she could be, then she would adapt. There had been no punishment for sleeping, even if there had been no change.  _ Please, let something change.  _ But what could she force to change? For now, there was nothing.

The journal never made mention of what trials might be there. The vague hints weren’t helpful for the trap she found herself in. 

_ ‘Andraste’s ashes would be safe from those who disbelieve. The Archon took her from us when Maferath gave him the means; we will not risk it happening again. Our lives, Andraste’s disciples, will be given for this purpose. She is with the Maker, but the symbol of her suffering is worth protecting. Perhaps one day, the ashes will become something more. It must.’ _

“Something more? What kind of something more?” There were no answers here! She didn’t throw the book, though. There  _ were  _ answers in it, just not to the questions she needed to ask. It was not the fault of the book that she was caged.

Setting it carefully back on the shelf, she unlaced her armor then made a nest beneath the blankets that came with the mysterious bed. This time, she would sleep properly. She had one more carefully small sip of water, then closed her eyes.

There was no pattern to what she made as her days. Her food ran out after she slept the fourth time, and her water not long after. The latter was the larger concern, she knew, but what could she do? The walls insisted on remaining solid, so she read. Once she finished the third journal, she paused and sat crosslegged again.

_ ‘Thus was the Temple finished, the Fade and Physical united in worship, Disciples swearing eternal protection. We do not know if the Archon will come after us, or if Hessarian’s heart opened enough to protect this last remnant of the Bride that we may see. Andraste, speak for us. Let the Maker know that we heeded His love for you.’ _

He had written scraps of the Chant here and there, alongside his own prayers to the Maker and his private, shamed prayers to the woman he followed even past death. He’d written in Tevene and not Almarri, but the meaning shone clear and true.

Whit closed her eyes and breathed, her back against the all-too-firm stone behind her solitary bed. How long could she stay here? How long would it take before the silence killed her?  _ ‘You don’t have to worry about silence when thirst will do you in, Whit. What’ve I told you about water?’ _

“Water is the very font of life,” she murmured back to Gidgit. “It gives us strength, it is what our hearts pump red with our own transitory place in this world. With it we quicken; we grow: without, we wilt and die. But none of that matters where there is no way to freedom, no way to the stream or snow.”

The Chant she’d read floated through her mind, even if this was in Tevene rather than the Almarri she’d known. It still... _ felt  _ similar. She spoke it, tasting it - the Chant was a song, and songs needed to be given voice. It was one of the few pieces that weren’t in the traditional chants. She had no idea why Andraste had chosen Tevene for a handful of songs, but she had.

“The wellspring, emerald, was at the heart   
Not just skies within caverns, but the mountain   
Heavy with years of troubles; blood stained   
My fingers, but the water cleansed it all.”

She could almost imagine another voice alongside hers.

_ “Here, the world and Fade are one _ _   
_ _ Perfect, and yet, it swirls to the City _ _   
_ _ The Maker’s Throne! Take pity, _ _   
_ _ Love beating against the skin and bone” _

Whit opened her eyes - the other voice had been  _ Tevene,  _ its rhythm close enough to run counterpoint to her own words.

The figure wavered in her sight.  _ “Thus were we held speechless at the site of creation. Why are you here, you who knows the Chant in the Bride’s own tongue?” _

She blinked, but in this place of strangeness couldn’t muster a stronger reaction. Was it a spirit that would see her thoughts as she spoke them, or the spirit of one of the Disciples, who may or may not have known any language but her own? The low voice was hollow, but there was a trace of richness in her words. Memories of fine cloth hung from her shoulders; if she was a Disciple, she was one whose heart changed in the Imperium.

“It is not Andraste’s tongue. Andraste was Almarri, one of the tribes and holds.”

_ “Andraste was also a slave. One truth does not negate the other. She sang in both, did she not?” _

The woman wore a robe, her stature taller than Whit, but not so tall as Daddy. The planes of her face were soft despite the sharp-cut bones beneath, dark as the tanned leather Whit wore. A soul trapped here? A spirit? There was no telling, but in either case it had been here for centuries.

“I know the Chant she sang in Almarri.”

_ “She was both. Why are you here? This is not a place for pilgrims.” _

The woman spoke in riddles despite the apparent directness. No matter how she looked or listened, Whit couldn’t detect who this spirit was. Even the other, the gatekeeper, had given more. Yet in this light, the face she studied wavered too much to read an expression. The voice was too diffuse. The oddity didn’t matter. It was still speech, still more than the nothingness she’d been facing. She craved more.

“I am a Blade of Hessarian,” she responded politely enough in Tevene. “I have come for the Blade itself. It is time.”

The spectral woman tilted her head - a difference from the one who opened the passage then trapped her here.  _ “So you claim.”  _

She vanished.

Whit bit back tears. Was it the wrong answer? But what else did it want? “ _ Who are you?” _

The emptiness where the apparition had stood remained empty. That left Whit with her thoughts - thoughts she didn’t want to have. She’d come for the sword, Hessarian’s Blade. She’d come for respect, for the place her mother had squandered when puberty tore away the gender she’d thought she was. She’d come for stubbornness, for doubt, for faith. She’d come to earn Daddy’s love.

All she wanted, now, was to go home.

_ Daddy’s glare burned as he threw her roughly to the ground. Char and Coal were used enough to the occurrence that they didn’t flinch or startle, just slid into the furthest corner with their bones. ‘A failure! You’re nothing but a failure.’ _

_ Unlike his voice outside their cabin, this one was poisoned and low. If she was a failure, then what had he not done to have a daughter rather than a son? She was living proof of his own failures. _

She swallowed, or tried. Her throat was dry, but it worked the second time. No tears. She wouldn’t cry - and didn’t dare cry and waste what water she had.

_ What have I done? What is this place? _

How had the other Blades survived?

After a time, weary from the tears she couldn’t shed, Whit pulled up the blanket again and closed her eyes against the unchanging light and unchanging room.

_ A hand stroked his shock of hair as he muffled the cries to whimpers.  _ It hurts…

_ “Hush, Whit, be strong,” mother murmured in Almarri. “You’re strong. I know this. We’re all forged to be tools of Andraste, but it is what you are made of that matters.” _

_ His eyes traced the freckles across her face, anything to keep from noticing what the healer was doing. “Mother?” _

_ She smiled before kissing his forehead. “What are we, Whit? What are we, at heart?” _

_ “Andraste’s blade.” _

_ “A weapon, then? Yes. But we are also the children of slaves, the great-grandchildren of slaves. The forging is hard - but we know how to yield to the hammer. We know how to bend so we don’t break. That is how we become our truest selves.” _

_ He choked off more sobs before they could leave his mouth, only to watch her nod quietly. _

_ “You know it in your heart, Whit. You’ll be forged - but you and Andraste alone know the core of you, what the Maker intended.” _

This time when she woke, the walls began to shift in her vision. It wasn’t the ache in her stomach but her parched mouth that was the cause. She’d been hungry many times before. The words of the book she reached for wavered and flowed away from meaning. She wanted to throw it against the wall, but that was what Daddy would do.

“Mother, why? Why didn’t you tell him the truth?” Wasn’t that the  _ real  _ reason she was here? That one lie was the cause of so much. It had led to Daddy’s anger, a dissatisfaction that he took out on the others by Challenge and then by demands for tribute. It was her mother’s lie that forced her to question who she was, that pushed Daddy to act in anger and drive the Blades to where others doubted. 

There was more. The deaths. The uneasiness at drill, the whispers and looks. All of it seemed to stem from that one decision, one lie that no one doubted until the damage was done.

She remembered her mother. They shared high cheekbones and eyes, freckles...but her mother’s hair was oakey brown, trailing waves across her face when it wasn’t braided back. 

“Why?”

The faint face in her memory didn’t answer. Instead, she looked down, her eyes full of something Whit had never deciphered.  _ ‘Be strong,’  _ she’d said before she left that last time.  _ Be strong.  _ It was such an odd thing to hear that it had stuck in her memory.

The last words of her mother were a command - or a plea.

Why hadn’t she told the truth before the lie would poison everything? Had her mother known his temper the same way she’d learned it? No matter how she tried, she couldn’t remember. “If you had, maybe he wouldn’t have grown angry. Maybe I could have…”

Her mind wandered in an almost-feverish state. It would be a sign of something dangerous, if there was anything she could do to act on it. As it was, she wandered in the past.

She could have done what? Most of the Blades were not tall and bulky like Daddy. Though few still had the pointed ears that marked the ancient lineage of elven slaves, they all bore the blood. They were more commonly like Olem and Gidgit; lean and wiry rather than carrying the heavy muscles and height of her father. He showed the Almarri blood that ran within them. Some few still had that line pure enough to read - not many - but build didn’t matter.

Everyone in the Blades learned to fight.

Everyone.

Everyone in the Blades learned the lore, the Chant handed down over generations. Most learned more.

They all learned the basics and their duty that they carried through generations. Trefir had charged those who chose to join him with their sacred duty, on the Blade of Mercy itself. It wasn’t to kill heretics - that was not what their mercy was for. Not all could believe, but those who warped the Chant, who misused faith -  _ those  _ were ones to be aware of. Then the Blade was used on the faithful.

_ ‘Let none suffer for being true to themselves. Punishments may come, but only the Maker can judge. Cruelty does not warp the victim, but the one who uses it. That mask will become the rot within a soul, and there is only one cure. Mercy.’ _

Whit licked her lips, her tongue already thick. “How could you let him succeed in his Challenge, if that was what he did?”

No. She tried to shut off the thoughts that crept in. Daddy hadn’t been cruel, he’d just been angry at the lies. Even if she hadn’t realized they were lies until then, her mother  _ had.  _

“Why, mother?”

This time, the soft cry throbbed.  _ Why?  _ The Blades were honest. Why a lie so large, one there was no way to keep past a generous decade?

The empty room had no answer. Whit thought about laying in the bed longer. She thought about her dagger, or her axes. In the end, she put bare feet on the floor, the cool shock hardly penetrating, and started walking down the passage.

“Without water, I’ll die. Should I die slow? I am dying slowly. Maybe quickly now. Mercy. There’s always mercy.” 

She sighed and made the turn back toward the room. 

“Why? Was it pride?” 

No, there had been no pride in the pained gasp that had set all this in motion. She hadn’t believed she was best suited to lead or chosen to guide the Blades. She knew her Chant and her history, but she was no master of lore. The rhythm of past centuries appealed, but not enough to turn from the blade. Stubbornness? She shook her head. 

“It was fear,” she sighed, the silence swallowing her quiet admission. “It was fear and curiosity. I wanted more.” There  _ had  _ to be more, there had to be a way…

“I wanted to do, and I couldn’t there. A Blade is meant to be unsheathed.”

She shook her head, almost laughing at the closed passage her feet had brought her back to. It took too much energy. At least there was no wind, though she missed the breezes. It was the rain she missed most, though the snowfalls so high up had been beautiful. To hear thunder as snow and sleet wrapped around you, to huddle close or hurry against ice-slicked cliffs to get home - it was a moment where you felt  _ alive.  _ Here, there was nothing.

The way back was just as empty, even when she scuffed her feet to pretend it was the hiss of snow against her cabin roof.

“I’ll…” Her words stopped.

On the table was an ewer. It hadn’t been there before, had it? No. She would have remembered. Slowly she stepped closer. Something teased her nose - a dampness. The dull metal didn’t gleam in the sourceless light, but unlike her axe blades she had the sense this wouldn’t have in  _ any  _ light. It was a practical thing, for a people that had given up luxury.

It was full of water.

_ Fear, doubt...and their child hope.  _

If she stayed fearful, she would die. If she doubted, she would die. Hoping, she drank.

The water tasted glorious. She knew it was flat and warm, as unnerving as everything else in this place, but her body didn’t care. It was  _ life,  _ and that was what she craved. It took willpower to stop after a few swallows, but she had no idea how the magic here worked. Would it remain? Would it vanish if she set it down?

“My thanks,” Whit said to whatever was listening.

Spectres and spirits alike wandered the remaining labyrinth, but she was no mage to see into the Fade. They were invisible unless they chose otherwise. Still. Something had aided her.  _ Or something was playing with her.  _ Her own bitter doubt crept into that hidden thought, but she pushed it back down. She had her axes and her faith. If it was the cruelty of ‘civilization’ then she could stop the game when she chose.

It was a cold, harsh comfort, but she was a Blade, daughter over generations of slaves.  _ ‘The only certainty a slave has is death.’  _ She remembered it well. For the first time, she started to understand Trefir as more than just the founder of the Blades, more than the one faithful servant of both his master and the Bride.

Death  _ could  _ be a comfort, but it was one she wasn’t ready to seek.

**

Whit was certain that what she was now calling ‘days’ were not. In this timeless place, with no food or water, how could she define time? The third day after water appeared, she found herself screaming at the uncaring wall blocking her from the mountain. Nothing answered her pleas.

Afterwards, she used some of the mysterious water to wash the blood from her hands. She ignored the stains left on the wall that shouldn’t exist anyway. Other things that  _ should  _ exist, like an overflowing chamber pot, remained empty. She hadn’t even noticed.

Each book now took two days. She woke, read for thirty pages, then walked. Her pace was one thing she knew well; she recited histories, or Pollen’s lessons on woodcraft, or the Chant. Then it was time for a drink as she tried to not think about hunger. It would fade soon enough.

Then it was more reading - and something else. Prayer. Until she’d left the Storm Coast, the pressures of other people and Daddy’s anger had kept her from truly having the time to do so. She’d  _ believed  _ in what the Blades did and Trefir’s words had always had special meaning to her, but it was only the solitude that gave her time to wonder.

“What did you mean, that doubt is a blessing?”

_ ‘Without doubt, your eyes are clouded, your ears closed. Knowledge is the enemy of learning, the enemy of compassion.’ _

If she spoke the Chant, the woman would join her for a moment, but she always left after asking her questions and getting a response. She never once said what she thought of Whit’s answers. Were they wrong? They couldn’t be: she always returned.

The Chant, the truth of what Andraste had said, called to her. That had to be it. It was some kind of companionship, if unsatisfying. Whit sighed as she hit her ‘evening’ after the last round of pacing for the day.

Tonight, she decided to check her weapons and armor. They had been ignored since she arrived, but with her hands still beating a pulse against the scabs, the pain reminded her.  _ ‘The truest armor is your heart, but that doesn’t change what a sword can do. We guard the Sword, we must be that source of Andraste’s mercy. Without the ability to use a blade, we are nothing.’ _

Her dagger, set on the table, had lost some of its edge. Whit dug into her pack for whetstone and the precious vial of oil she’d brought, then took out her axes to give them the same inspection. It was hard to judge them without shadows, but her left axe still drew blood when she ran a light thumb along its edge. The right didn’t. So, two blades to work on. She set them on the table.

Her armor hadn’t stiffened much in this odd space, but she also hadn’t inspected it closely for...weeks, at least? Not since leaving the Blightlands and risking contact with other people again. She had the proper needle and thread to mend the two tears, but nothing to replace the buckle that was beginning to stretch. She sighed, but the feel of it was reassuring. She hadn’t forgotten where she was from, and Cameron’s work held up better than she could have hoped.

“Armor or weapons first?”

It didn’t truly matter, but the question sank in.

_ ‘Mother? Why do you always check your armor?’ _

_ The compact woman smiled down at her - not too far down any longer. ‘Because I want to live.’ _

_ ‘But it’s leather! It won’t stop a bear, or a rockfall, or the wolves, or…’ _

_ ‘Whit! Whit, slow down, son.’ Her mother had patted her cheek. ‘It is my weapons that I need to face my adversary, but is my armor that lets me draw them. Anything can be a weapon, but armor? That is something that takes care and preparation. Just like faith: you have to be strong enough and certain enough to rely on it, but it doesn’t get there on its own.’ _

_ It hadn’t mattered that her leather was studded with steel - it hadn’t even mattered when she added scraps of chain in places. It was always done with care, and her mother checked it every time she left their home. _

Whit pulled the armor closer, the not-quite jerkin of stiffened leather yet another shield for her particular situation. The bigger tear was right at the shoulder - probably from when she grabbed onto the cliffside. Working with the heavy needle was hard, but she had never minded hard. 

_ ‘Why do you care so much about fixing it all yourself, Whit? You can rely on other people, you know.’ _

She closed her eyes for a moment. “You know why, Olem,” the whisper snuck out. He did, even if he asked only to give her another solution, an easier answer.

She made sure she always could care for her own armor because her mother hadn’t come back. It was the last thing she’d said. The habit had also made it easier, after her body betrayed her. Whit, Harrit’s son, had always cared for his own armor. Whit, Harrit’s  _ daughter,  _ evaded suspicion because she continued the habit.

The tears she wouldn’t shed choked her for a minute. Then she went back to sewing, grateful for the effort and constant training that gave her strong enough fingers and wrists for the delicate, frustrating work.

At some point, she started to hum, then chant. Her voice was ill-suited to song, but the Blades had few true songs - not the way the outsiders did. Music was played, but voices were for chanting.

It wasn’t the Chant, but something older again. Pollen always used the ancient epics when he worked.

_ ‘Sky-father, of missing heart _ _   
_ _ Winter-born, miss your mark _ _   
_ _ Hold to heal, rest, and pray _ _   
_ _ Safe-held underneath your gaze.’ _ __   
__   
The chant went on, an easy rhythm that translated itself to the push-and-pull of the needle. The tear closed, even stitches keeping it in place until she could go home and work to have it repaired - or replaced - properly. The second was even easier.

Switching from one chant to another, she pulled out the rags of her second shirt and the oil. There was so little she had of home; she took a deep breath, but the piney scent was frustratingly faint. This place seemed to deaden everything, in a way the outer passages had not.

The new one was a good one for keeping a steady pace, and the dagger slid along the whetstone at half-speed. Whit checked the blade after the third verse, wiping it clean. A verse more.

Pollen had taught her this one - had taught all of them. Olem usually went faster, his impatience showing even in the care of his blades - though he worked them no less carefully, just quickly. There was much of the sudden thunderstorm about him. Gidgit turned hers into almost a dirge, but Whit had never seen a sharper blade. It made sense for the one who wanted to heal.

_ ‘To heal, you must be able to harm. More, you must be able to do so quickly, easily, and with the cold ruthlessness of a mountain. Anything less, and the patient will suffer.’  _ Healers, she decided again, were strange people.

After the dagger, the axe. They had been gifts from Daddy, once. He’d been proud of her for choosing such a dangerous weapon, even if it wasn’t his great hammer. Few learned axes: the balance was hard to master.

She loved them.

They were weapons, but they were also  _ tools.  _ Or was that what she decided after years of beatings? Once, she probably had chosen them because she’d been his pride, Harrit’s son, for all her short stature.  _ ‘Oh, he’ll grow.’ _

Once, Whit had thought she would, too. She was always  _ just  _ that little bit shorter than the other boys, except for one year. Well, not shorter than Kip, but he was  _ short.  _ Best climber and bowman Pollen had trained, though.

This time, a drop landed on the metal, leaving a small ripple in the oil. She carefully wiped down the blade, added a little more oil, and kept going. 

_ I miss them. _

She hadn’t expected to miss them - but she should have. Pollen’s harsh wisdom, Olem’s challenge, Cameron’s cleverness, Gidgit’s certainty, Char’s lazy lope when she came hunting as well, Coal’s grumping barks.

Missing them didn’t change anything, though.

After she put her blades away, she couldn’t bring herself to read tonight. Instead, she wiped her hands on the rag as well, carefully stoppered the oil, then curled up under the blankets and turned her face to the wall. It didn’t matter, not when she was alone…

So alone.

It was still easier to cry her silent tears covered in blankets, facing away from where the spirit sometimes showed. How long had it been? How much longer would it be?

Hunger was replaced by the deeper one: not for food, but for  _ home.  _

“Mother, it hurts.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Return to the slave-hold, serve as promise - fear chokes song, but still  
Sing I will, sing of the glories known to a slave freedom-filled  
Fear will not trap me, I will sing there...Maker please hear my song  
Freedom-born knows freedom’s cost, and that requires righting wrongs.  
Rise, Holds will to the calling - the gods below your throne sing forth  
Laughing Lady, Your Veil sky-born, deepest winter’s promised Korth -  
Hold-beast and strong warriors mill  
Around me - Maker, they throng  
I quail, but your will - atone  
Give us one word, we seek your signs.**

**

In the morning, she couldn’t focus. Tears didn’t fill either a heart or a belly, and Whit could tell she was getting weaker. How long? How long? The question matched her pulse, but there were no answers here.

She blinked.

Was it that easy? This place she was in had no answers. It offered knowledge without meaning, light without shadow, water without taste...all that she had was what she brought, and she had brought nothing. She’d left the Storm Coast because she’d thrown out one last attempt to prove her worth, she’d hidden and avoided people along the way...even here, when she was asked, she couldn’t say  _ why.  _

It wasn’t what the first spirit wanted, but he had said there would be trials.

_ ‘Trials of faith.’ _

A gauntlet.

What could that be for a place like this? She didn’t know. In the light-headed clarity of starvation, Whit realized she didn’t need to know. 

_ “We had heard of her coming, the prophetess, the heretic. _ _   
_ _ We doubted - but we wondered. Even my master, the Magister _ __   
_ He wondered. He thought we wouldn’t hear, so quiet _ _   
_ __ He spoke - but slaves are forgotten in darkness and fear.”

_ “He was sent to listen, but what he heard pierced his heart,”  _ the hollow voice followed hers.  _ “A hunger he hadn’t known woke in him, and he wanted.” _

Whit looked up at the woman, so sorrowful in her fine clothing. “He did,” she continued in Tevene. “He hoped.”

_ “What is it you seek in this place?” _

One hand found the Crest around her neck, rubbing along the familiar curves and hollows. “I thought I came for the Blade of Mercy, but the Blade isn’t enough on it’s own. I don’t know what is.”

A flicker of a smile almost moved the woman’s lips.  _ “None of us knew what we sought, only that with the Bride, we found it.” _

The spirit still unnerved her, but today the urge for companionship of any sort was stronger than her wary distrust. “What are you? Who? Spirit or soul-bound?”

A ripple spilled through the air, silent.  _ “I am,”  _ came the disappointing response.  _ “The Disciples sacrificed much in their faith and fear. What would you give for Hessarian’s Blade? What would you become? How would it not be more for Her ashes themselves?” _

“That isn’t an answer.”

_ “Would you believe one if I gave it?” _

Would she? Today, spun through with forgotten hunger and desperation, perhaps. But a belief built on need was easily toppled.

_ “Exactly.” _

After so many weeks in the company of her memories of friends and history alike, the spirit reading her thoughts didn’t surprise Whit. She could have showed it on her face – it could have seen the emotion reflected in the Fade. The mages of the Blades talked some about spirits, if not how the dead bound to life worked. Some knowledge, Trefir and those who followed had let lay undisturbed. The dead should be allowed to return to the Maker.

She shook her head, annoyed with her mind’s lack of discipline. “I still want the answer.”

_ “We want many things. We seek others. Here, truth is no less complex.” _

“What happened to the Disciples?”

The spirit vanished.

Whit bit back a cry, though she wasn’t sure if it was rage or grief. The emotion was enough to make her stand unsteadily. If she couldn’t read, she could walk. Today it was slow and painstaking; she needed the wall hard against her shoulder to keep from weaving. Even if she wasn’t hungry, her body craved the nourishment it had been without – for how long now? A week? More? The time had blurred, and she hadn’t considered marking days along the wall or table.

Oh. The flat end of the passage before her loomed suddenly. She turned and made her way back. Nothing had changed. Of course nothing had – nothing ever changed.  _ “Andraste – Trefir. Guide me.” _

It wasn’t a prayer. Not really. It was a whisper of desperation to two people who had long since fled this world for the next. But there was no one else, no one at all, who would answer her. The room still taunted her. For a moment she considered her dagger still on the table. Instead, she took a dry drink and turned to walk down the passage again. It was a dull choice, made for lack of anything other than to simply give up. As terrible as things had gotten, Whit wasn’t ready yet. The same dogged endurance she’d lived for the five years of Daddy’s betrayed rage pushed her feet. Something might yet change. She might find a way, something in a later book, but for now she walked.

_ ‘Blades must act as well as think. Doubt is at our hearts, but doubt cannot overcome the need to do.’  _ One of the Blades had written that, a generation after Trefir.  _ ‘We have been entrusted with Andraste’s mercy. When life is too cruel, when living is too destructive, we must  _ act.  _ This is why we must have faith as well as doubt.’ _

How far had her feet gone? It felt longer somehow, but the end of the passage still loomed.

It wasn’t an end any longer. Whit’s shoulder, suddenly bereft of the wall supporting her weight, pulled her to the left. She staggered until she found her balance, then stared.

What else could she do? The wall had changed from a flat ending to…she looked left, then moved back to where the wall should have been. Yes. It was a corner. She spun; a mistake as her head kept spinning. Once it steadied enough to see, she made her stumbling way back to the chamber.

Painful hope filled her as she threw on armor and boots, tightening the very buckles she’d checked yesterday, then sheathed her weapons. She lifted her pack with trembling arms, carefully putting it over her shoulders. She couldn’t lose what little she had left. Then she moved back down the dim passage. No, it was her eyes that were dimming. Twenty-five paces. That was all it was.

She counted thirty by the time the left wall vanished again to reveal more unshadowed stone.

It was a passage.

She crept down it. The same refusal to surrender pushed her into the unknown. If all that was in your present was slow and meaningless death, what was there to fear in choosing the chance at life?

**

The passage didn’t twist, but when she looked back, she could no longer see any sign of the corner where she turned. Whether it was light or more magic, she couldn’t tell. Whit shrugged, brushed a finger across her Crest, and staggered on. Behind her lay only death. Certainty. She moved toward doubt.

Forty paces later, the passage ended at a door. She paused, startled by the sudden obstacle after so long with only stone. Was it another choice? What other choice did she have?

The knob was simple, blackened iron. The door itself was hardwood aged to the hardness of granite. Neither told her any more than the featureless light or the worn but sturdy stone that framed it. Inured to strangeness of this place, Whit turned the knob and pushed.

Light-  _ actual  _ light - made her eyes water. She blinked back the tears and tried to look around the room again. The room was large, with other sealed doors leading elsewhere, she supposed. There was nothing else she could see.  _ What choice do I have?  _ She could turn away and die. 

Instead, she stepped in.

The door thudded shut behind her. Whit jumped and turned to look at it: it was there, as though offended she’d doubted.  _ ‘Doubt everything. Certainty is the enemy of faith.’  _ Well, she had yet to hear of a door taking revenge. She studied the wall; it was nearly featureless at first, but then she noticed the faint carvings the shadows edged. She peered closer, touching one with a fingertip. Yes, it was  _ something,  _ even if she didn’t recognize what. A dry almost-chuckle slipped out.

“Why would I recognize it? I haven’t recognized anything in this place, even what should be familiar. I wonder what it is.”

_ “It is history, but that history is secondary now. Prepare yourself.” _

_ This  _ voice had spoken in not Tevene, but the same Almarri as she. Whit turned; it was another wavering figure in fur and leather with its own giant hammer. Blood drained from her face.  _ Daddy.  _ It  _ wasn’t,  _ but it might as well have been.

Was she supposed to face a tireless warrior now? Her body was failing, desperate for what she couldn’t give it. Then again, her choice now was a choice of  _ which  _ death she wanted. She could starve, she could take it herself – or she could fight.

Only one  _ wasn’t  _ a certainty.

Whit let her pack fall and pulled out her axes. She chose doubt.

Rules weren’t mentioned, so she relied on those of the Blades.  _ ‘Rule one, Whit! If you draw blade, mean it. Rule two: be honest with your skill. Rule three: If you can, make things quick. Rule four: another Blade can yield. Mercy is knowing when to accept it – or when to ask it. There is no shame in being overmatched, so long as you don’t give up before you start.’ _

Were those rules from the Almarri that formed the heart of Andraste’s faithful, or was that something that came from Tevinter? Perhaps something else entirely, but it was all she had. She might not be able to succeed, but she could let fear defeat her – or let it guide her.

Olem came to her aid this time.  _ ‘You’re too small to fight the hammer, Whitling.’  _ How old had she been when he’d told her that? Twelve, perhaps. She was old enough to have moved to full-sized weapons rather than the smaller, even if they were softwood instead of steel.  _ ‘You’re scrawny like most of us. We have to be quick. Don’t fight it. Just don’t be there.’ _

To fight might, she needed guile. After untold days without food, she had desperation in its stead. The first blow felt like it was moving slowly – but so was her reaction as she slid just outside its range. One axe almost fell from her hand. She shifted her grip, glad that in this place she wasn’t sweating. More blows fell, near-silent even as the hammer hit the ground. By the fourth, she was panting.

The sixth caught her shoulder, numbing her arm. Her axe fell to the ground.  _ ‘Are you going to stop because you’re down one axe? Last I checked, Whit, you’ve got another one! If one axe is enough for a tree, it’s enough for a man!’ _

She spun, her right axe still ready, and caught where his arm should be. It met no resistance, but the man stepped back.

_ “You fought. Why?” _

What?

He was looking at her. “Because all other choices were worse,” she gasped out, “When you have the choice to attempt the impossible or die...”

He repeated the line with her.  _ “The attempt no longer looks so impossible.”  _ He continued,  _ “Go through the left door.” _

There was another bed – and a plate with some kind of dried travel rations. Whit almost fell on it, but remembered when she had in the Blightlands. Instead of risking it all coming back up, she forced herself to break it into small bits and eat a little at a time, drinking from the ever-present ewer in between bites.

What was this place? What was she supposed to learn – or prove? Then again, if they were feeding her, she clearly hadn’t yet failed.

_ ‘If you’re alive, Whit, you’ve not failed yet.’ _

She chuckled. “There is that, Gidgit.” Oh, Trefir, she missed them. She’d already cried once; to do so again wouldn’t accomplish anything. Her throat still ached.

No. That wasn’t tears, that was the food. Surely it was the food.

Whit swallowed, then reached for another bite.

After her shrunken stomach couldn’t take any more, sense came back. She hadn’t checked any of the food, or the water! Her axes!

The one was sitting on the table. She hurried back out. Thank Hessarian, its twin and her pack were still there. It also meant she had oil and a chance to mend the damage done to it by the stone floor. It wasn’t much, but she couldn’t afford a lack of care – not now.

“There’s too much I don’t know here,” she admitted to the now-empty room. It probably wasn’t, but it at least seemed to be. That would have to be enough. With so much uncertain, she needed the comfort of her routine, narrow as it might be, and the comfort of the straightforward care of her weapons and armor – and her mind. There was a reason the Blades chanted when they worked their blades. It honed not just the body, but the mind.

**

Stabbing pains in her gut woke her.  _ Not now!  _ It wasn’t her body, though, it was the food she’d eaten.  _ ‘Take too long between meals, and they’ll hurt when you start. Your body forgets.’  _

Breathe.

_ ‘Breathe through the pain, Whit. It works. It will ease. No pain is permanent.’  _ Her mother had said that, once.

“Why, mother? Why did you lie?”

It wasn’t breathing, though Whit tried to do that, too - but it was something to take her attention from the pain. That  _ why  _ had ached for...five years now, ever since she’d realized. The life she’d lived as Harrit’s son: a lie. It had all been one. What did that mean for the parents who’d been so proud, so supportive?

“No, they loved me. Daddy still does.” She  _ had  _ to believe it, but everything had changed when he found out the truth. Her mother had known. Her  _ mother  _ had made the choice. “Why?”

_ “Not all questions have answers.” _

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud - not until the hollow voice sounded. Festering bitterness and her own betrayal twisted together.

“I didn’t ask you! Who are you to judge! You’re dead! I’m not a Disciple, and I’m as trapped here as I’ve ever been!” The words hung against the still air as Whit stayed curled on her side, arms wrapped around her middle.

_ Go away. If you can’t answer, and you can’t, then go  _ away.

What would it matter that this  _ thing  _ might judge her? It didn’t. It shouldn’t. It’s not like she  _ hadn’t  _ been naked here as she tried to clean herself from the ewer’s water and the rags of her second shirt, or had - oh, she hadn’t had her courses. Well, they would come when they did; at least hers weren’t the clockwork of the smaller moon.

_ Why?  _

Whit knew she’d never get the answer.  _ Did she love me, or what she wanted me to be? Who can I be?  _ She was sixteen now, but it wouldn’t be more than a few years before she’d be expected to find a wife and have children.

She didn’t - couldn’t.  _ Was  _ that  _ why I left? _

No. No, it couldn’t have been.  _ Mother, why did you think this would work? Why did you try? Is that why you left when you did? Did you plan to be gone before Daddy found out the truth? _

Now it was a different pain, an older one, that she curled around. She’d never known. She’d never understood, and who could she ask? Daddy was always there, always so proud of his ‘son,’ so involved in ‘his’ training…

Had he been afraid? 

She kept her lips sealed to keep from summoning what lived in this place, hoping that it was the familiar language that drew them, not her emotion. What did spirits live on, anyway? They were reflections of the physical, she’d been told by one of the mages.  _ Why would Daddy be afraid? He was bigger, stronger than everyone. He proved that a few years ago.  _

Another traitorous thought sprang up from what she’d seen the few times she’d dared get close to the people of the Chantry.  _ In most places, what mother did wouldn’t have worked. She wouldn’t have been able to.  _ Whit had seen the laughing, naked children splashing in a river, or both parents wrapped up and helping fit new clothes, check for injuries, or anything else. 

_ The Blades are different. _

Within the Blades, it wasn’t that nakedness was evil, but it wasn’t  _ done.  _ They were private for all they lived day-in and day-out in a single place. Every family had a cabin, and you were dressed outside it. The Storm Coast didn’t encourage splashing in either the rocky speed of the creeks and rivers that thundered down the canyons or the riptides of the ocean less than an hour from their fortress.

Why?

It had never occurred to her to question; it was how things were done. Now that she couldn’t get answers, she questioned. 

_ ‘Question everything. Some things have a purpose and others are convenience turned custom turned law. The latter are the enemy of duty, the enemy of truth. If there is no answer to ‘why,’ then the questions should flow. Is there another way, a better way? Andraste sang. Such a simple thing, yet it was  _ that  _ which drew the Maker’s gaze. At the end, she sang. Such a simple thing, yet it was  _ that  _ which turned Hessarian’s heart - and in the end, the Archon’s, too late for us to return.’ _

Unfortunately, not all questions  _ could _ be answered. Or was that fortunate? Her mind drifted back to her own ‘failure,’ of being a daughter when Daddy had been told she was his son. Perhaps it was a remnant of the Blades having once been slaves - a desire for privacy, for ownership of themselves. Perhaps it was something of the Almarri now lost to time from when they lived in the high mountains. Perhaps.

By the time the storm of emotion had passed, Whit was able to uncurl and gingerly sit up. The spectre was gone - or had never finished appearing. It would come again, perhaps. Right now, she didn’t care. Instead she stood and pulled on pants. 

_ Why? _ she blinked. It wasn’t like there was anyone to see, or cold enough temperatures to matter. After a hesitation, she continued and belted them around her hips. She was more comfortable like this, she supposed, and they  _ did  _ provide some faint protection against scrapes should she fall.

There was still water; Whit drank. There was some remnants of the hard-packed and dried rations she ate last night; she saved water to chew them and swallow. 

The pain returned; her stomach protested the sudden activity, at being forced back into being. Whit couldn’t smile, but she could almost understand. The monotony of the room had been painful, but it had been certain. That certainty was gone.

On the other hand, there was something she could  _ do  _ here. Perhaps. The larger room might have that other spirit, the one who would fight. There were other doors to explore. But something held her back. She shook herself; she knew what it was. There was a comfort in inertia, in letting herself drift.

How wouldn’t she know? She’d done it all her life.

It was  _ easier  _ to do what her parents had wanted of her,  _ easier  _ to continue living the lie even after she and Daddy found out the truth.  _ ‘It’s also easier to die than to live.’ _

Olem’s dry voice from when she’d  _ almost  _ given up the axes made her smile through her tangled feelings.  _ ‘Don’t worry, you’re not rid of me so easily!’ _

She’d gotten back up and fought that day, working her wrists until she could barely eat, until her arms finally built up the muscle needed to handle the odd balance the axes used. She hadn’t given up then.

She wouldn’t give up now.

**

_ ‘Inertia is death.’ _

It wasn’t, but it was a cousin.

Whit wrapped her scabbarded axes to where they hung, convenient on her hips, and stepped out. Should she have armor? Well, it was too late now - and to be honest, the straps only had so much life remaining. She snorted. Rationalizations. She hadn’t noticed before, not without Olem or Pollen pointing them out, but now?

She’d had too much time with only her thoughts to keep her company. The realization hit; when she didn’t have the others to lean on, she’d forced herself to lean  _ on  _ herself. Well, herself, Trefir, and the lessons she’d learned from them...so not truly just herself.

_ “Prepare yourself.” _

She was just as startled today as she had been yesterday. Then it was starvation. Now, it was being a fool and letting her thoughts distract her from her surroundings. This time, though, the memories of those other fights gave her something that could have been confidence, if she couldn’t see into her own heart.

Instead of answering, Whit studied the figure. Yes, Almarri, and heavy with muscle. 

_ ‘The Disciples were the heart of Andraste’s army, those who had believed before an army it became. The Blades - we were the heart of her lieutenants and the heart of those who learned to believe from watching her turn doubt to hope, and hope to reality. We continued to believe even as her death spelled the end of the threat to Tevinter, because we had seen one woman’s faith shake the Imperium.’ _

_ ‘One woman did what corrupted Dumat, in two hundred years, had failed to do.’ _

_ ‘One song, one person’s faith. On so little hung our hope.’ _

No, that wasn’t useful. There were Almarri who’d joined with the Blades and Tevene who became Disciples, but it was less common among the Blades. The Disciples were different. This man was not the monolith of the Disciples the lowland Chantry believed they had wiped out, if he had been a Disciple rather than a spirit bound to this place. His beard was streaked with grey; his furs and leathers looked cobbled together until she saw the careful stitches, the way they overlapped everywhere that mattered but didn’t impede the heavy swings his arms needed for his chosen weapon. Even his boots were that same mix of ‘savage’ practicality. The Almarri were proud of who they were and refused to change to suit another’s sensibilities. If it could not be made by them, it would never be but a luxury.

That was also why he had the hammer, if she were to guess. It could be made of wood and bone, tightened with sinew, hardened by heat, and straightened by steam. This one looked to be a giant’s heelbone. Daddy preferred the shoulder - he said it had better balance, drinking one memorable night by the central fire.

What else could she learn? Older - that meant experienced. The balance of the hammer would be different than Daddy’s, better for the angled blows. He was Almarri through, even down to the memory scars along his cheekbone. He had knowledge and strength, but might be slower. A hammer always meant slower blows, but the power balanced it out.

_ ‘Dance with him, Whitling!’ For whatever reason, Daddy had been in a good mood. She’d proven her worth and earned steel blades - for the moment, she was his son, his pride. The weight and pride had also made her stupid, trying to match Olem. _

_ He’d always been bigger than her: older and more experienced. _

_ That was the day she’d learned experience wasn’t everything. Instead of trying to use her axes to stop his sword, she used them to deflect - or once, when the lower point caught against it, jerked him just a little. He didn’t drop it, but it slowed him. _

She unlimbered her axes, watching his eyes and shoulders. She couldn’t see his chest - no one could through armor, and the fur only made it harder, but his eyes would still reveal something. They should, at least. Did that work with a spirit? Would his shoulders show when he was preparing another crushing blow?

Whit could still feel the leaden weight of hunger, but a night with food in her belly helped. How long had it been since she’d used her axes in combat? Weeks. Months, other than against that bear hungry before her first winter.  _ ‘Animals have their own thoughts, but it’s not the guile of a man. Remember the difference.’ _

She did, rolling her wrists and feeling how her blades cut the air.  _ Thank you Hessarian.  _ At least in  _ this  _ space, light wasn’t as deceptive as before. There were shadows, though there was no way for her to maneuver to gain advantage by using it.

The warrior did nothing.

Neither did she, watching him.

What was he waiting for? It was he who cried challenge, not she; he who had the bulk and weight, not she. Daddy’s voice, barbed, rang through her mind.  _ ‘You can’t honestly expect others to back down before  _ your  _ might, Whitling. Not unless the Maker is kind and just delayed your growth. You can’t intimidate. For you, it’s the hard way.’ _

This was different, unsettlingly so. Others charged at  _ her,  _ not this. On the other hand, every moment was another without the fear of death, so there was that.

_ “Why do you wait?” _

He was asking  _ her?  _ She felt the words around her tongue before answering; even those could be a weapon. Should she answer? Well, she was stuck here if she did not. Whit knew better than to turn her back on someone who had declared himself a possible foe.

“You have done me no harm and guard the Bride’s remains,” she answered, letting the Almarri carry the sense of comrades in purpose. “You said to prepare. I have done so, but I see no reason to attack.”

There was a dark lightening in the room around them. Whit shivered against it. Magic was still unnerving, even if the Blades didn’t have the same mixture of fear and fascination as those of the Chantry. It was not a thing for everyday use, but for the preservation of records and skin alike. Here, the blue-veined walls seemed to breathe magic.

What reaction had she expected? Not the one she received.  _ “Knowledge is its own harm, Hessarian’s Blade - or so you claim. That has yet to be proven.” _

Her lip tried to pull itself into a snarl before she beat it down, eyes narrowed. Who was this to say she wasn’t a Blade?  _ Was that any different than she thought?  _ It  _ was,  _ though. Whit knew she was being taunted, yet still slid forward and left, keeping her weight balanced onto the balls of her feet. 

_ Watch the shoulders. _

There was almost no warning this time, except the slight bunching of his bicep. She had to spin to one side, the haft of her left axe guiding the hammer wide as her right axe came up in a wicked underhand at his side. He stepped back and she lacked the range to follow through.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Tribes together, warriors stong, cannot battle alone** **  
Against tainted magic from dark gods taught, born of blood and bone  
Yet the Tribes alone are not: alongside fight slave and soldier  
Others, fear-born have fought their own battles to freedom shoulder  
Maker, only your promise will bind in deepest devotion  
Across empire and hold, from Korth’s mountain to deepest ocean.  
Maker ease your heart of stone  
Return to us, ever older  
Second-born, ever stolen  
By our fear and need from your side**

**

The immediate continuation didn’t happen.

Instead, the man waited again.

What was he trying to do? What was he trying to seek?

The frustration of the past weeks continued to build as she had another three exchanges, each inconclusive. Her focus was now completely on the hollow creature in front of her. The next time, when he moved to withdraw she followed, aiming another blow. This one was supposed to hit his leather-covered thigh. Instead, she was driven to her own knees. In her anger, she’d forgotten  _ his  _ speed.

If she could continue, so could he.

It felt like a cracked collarbone, but as she breathed the pain began to fade.

Fade.

_ Magic. _

More magic, and the man was still in front of her. How long had they been at this?

_ “Your focus is lacking.” _

Her  _ what?  _ She had focused too hard!

There was no point in yelling at the spirit. Instead, she lunged back to her feet. As she did, he vanished.

Profanities rumbled through her mind, but she didn’t see the value in saying them. Even if she was foolish enough to taunt him, he was gone. There was no point in worrying when she didn’t know what summoned him. Whit sighed and checked her blades: they were all she had. Now that she had real light, she could see the lattice of faint scars and nicks along their edges, ones she’d missed before.

She hunted down her oil and whetstone, then sat back in the main area, cross legged on the floor. She could consider her anger and the spirit’s words, or she could focus on her blades. Blades - no, the Blades were far from here.

_ ‘Hessarian’s Blade - or so you claim.’ _

She  _ had  _ claimed it, but any Blade would.

The chant that came quietly from her lips was one of the Tevene ones, a gentle lullaby. The whetstone glided across the first blade, smoothing the steel and sharpening it. She had only steel, but ‘only’ steel was still better than any slave’s weapons.

_ ‘Lady, love-found _ _   
_ _ Lord, love-drawn _ _   
_ _ Maker guide us _ _   
_ _ Make it whole.’ _

The meaning of the song was clear - the word ‘it’ was one that was genderless and  _ large.  _ It was not a mistake for ‘us’ or ‘me’...or even the more broad ‘people.’ There was a clear intent.

What intent?

She’d argued this with Gidgit and Cameron, Pollen indulgently listening, for hours. What was the ‘it’ the snippet of song referred to? Her anger bled away, or was stored away for later thought, as she pondered the verses.

_ Was  _ it the world, as some argued? Was it a sundering between Fade and physical? Perhaps it was the putrid infection of the Blight, or the vast expanses of deserted, desolated land. Blightlands. Olem once argued it could mean the Imperium, but that made no sense and was ignored.

The axes were shining and clear again, even as her mind kept drifting along the chant and the lessons Pollen taught with it alongside Treese. More clear-headed, she looked up and out at the currently-empty room.

Well, he hadn’t come back.

Her focus? The words ambushed her. Her focus was  _ lacking?  _ She’d been  _ too  _ focused, not unfocused. Whit shrugged. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to. Even spirits could be wrong. Even elders could be wrong.

With the spectre gone, she decided to take advantage of the space - and food. There was space enough here for real stretching and drills against the air - and over past where he’d shown was pells. Pells...would be good.

Whit chewed her lip. Well, they’d be good for the short time they lasted. Maybe she should find something she could use to cover the blades so she didn’t destroy the wooden practice dummy. There were shelves and  _ things  _ here; more than she’d seen before.

Still alone, she sheathed her axes and started exploring the room. 

**

This space was more expansive - well, she’d already known that. Beyond just  _ that,  _ there were a wider range of things than a bed, a table that only had water, a chamber pot, and a small bookshelf. The large room had the pell, a variety of mostly dull weapons that showed clear craftsmanship, some boiled leather, oil, knives...there were also a heavy chest, dark with age. It wouldn’t open when she pulled at its lid, so she moved on.

It was such a strange sensation to be able to  _ smell  _ again. Whit had never considered that, but in this space she could  _ smell  _ the leather and the faint tang of some kind of hardwood from the pells. It also meant she could smell herself, though. The rank tang of old sweat wasn’t something she particularly enjoyed.  _ It was better than being dead,  _ she reminded herself. It  _ was.  _ It was still unpleasant.

The other doors, she left alone for now. The utter newness and space here was already a bounty after the tiny chamber and hallway she’d been trapped in before; it was almost overwhelming. 

She shook herself, angry again. It had been weeks trapped in riddles. What was there to be grateful for? Solitude? Questions she had no answers to? Those she had at home. She was no infant, no  _ child  _ to be led or prey to be toyed with. She had  _ years  _ of living in the Storm Coast, even a few years of experience hunting with Olem or Pollen before she’d left and made her way  _ across Ferelden  _ to this place! 

“What are you doing to me? What do you  _ want?”  _ The sound of her shout echoed back at her, but this time there was no answer.

What did this place want of her?

It was a question with no better answers than the reverse. What did  _ she  _ want?

The Blade of Mercy, yes, but was that truly why she’d left? Was that truly what she was looking for?

Whit shook her head and decided to search for something easier to find, like a bucket of water for a bath - and to clean her stinking clothes.

**

Her ‘new’ sleeping quarters had a small nook with buckets of water, and even rags. She’d long since decided to not wonder about how the wood and leather stayed supple; it was even easier to not wonder about how the cloth hadn’t gone to moths and dust, or how water just appeared.  _ Magic.  _ There were preservation magics - some the Blades still practiced to guard their histories and purpose. That wasn’t the only thing the Blades used, though.

_ ‘Why are we doing this?’ She hadn’t minded the chance to read, but her hand was cramping. _

_ Cameron shrugged. ‘Because they hate us?’ _

_ ‘You know better than that! It’s not just a punishment, it’s something everyone does.’ _

_ He rolled his eyes at their other companion, but she knew Gidgit had a point. ‘Why, though?’ _

_ The short girl shrugged and pushed acorn-brown hair out of her eyes. They’d teased her for years about how nutty her head was. ‘I don’t know. Maybe the magic doesn’t always work. In either case, it lets me read when  _ you  _ two aren’t jabbering, and I even get to work with  _ paper.’  _ The last word was almost reverent. _

_ There was little paper for anything but necessities. All of it was hoarded for the required messages, sketches by the craftsmen and smith, or this. Whit bent back to the paper and thick ink, looking at the angular letters and letting her mind piece them together. _

_ ‘...and then, winter. We had never experienced winter, those of us whose blood ran warm as the Imperium. It wasn’t even a ‘proper’ snow, we were told, just a flurry. It still terrified us, drove us to beg for shelter, for fire. The Almarri who chose Mercy rather than Vigilance laughed and said we’d warm soon enough once we were moving again. By the Maker, I hope they’re right.’ _

_ It wasn’t Trefir’s writing - it was another of the First Blades. Maryam. She had written most of the journey and the struggles, while Trefir focused on philosophy and the future. No one was sure whether they had wed or were ideal partners in all other ways. Well. No one that would tell thirteen-year-olds. _

_ Whit sighed. She liked the knowledge, but this wasn’t what Daddy valued. Strength of arm, not strength of mind. ‘Knowledge is fine, but willpower and grit matter more! You can’t remember if you’re dead!’ _

_ Why? Why  _ were  _ they supposed to do this? _

She’d almost asked Treese after she’d gotten her tattoo, the marks of adulthood stinging across her cheek and chin. Now, she could expect an answer - but it wasn’t that easy. Just because she had the tattoos didn’t mean the others would stop seeing her as Harrit’s son. She’d been a child the week before. Adulthood was recognized, but it took more than ink or valor to make it respected.

Whit scrubbed at her body again, trying to ignore the traitor breasts as always. The more she’d trained with her axes, the less they showed - but they  _ were  _ there, just as her hips were...no magic would change that.

_ “Why,  _ Daddy?” What she was had been enough - or mostly enough - the day she was his son. The day she  _ wasn’t, nothing  _ was enough. Everything became tied to one reason: she wasn’t a son. She couldn’t be what he’d been promised, what he believed.

No. He still loved her. He still could look at her with pride as she learned the axes, or when she helped bring down that wolf pack one hungry winter. He’d still been  _ angry,  _ though, always angry.

Clothes and body clean, she laid out her wet things, wrapped herself in the worn spares she still had, ate, and then laid down to sleep. The constant light no longer bothered her, though she made a note to try to determine when day and night were, since there was some  _ real  _ light that crept into the larger practice space.

**

It took time to regain the rhythm of day and night - and even after learning it again, Whit couldn’t always keep it. While the main room had both in some form, it also had the spectre and combat. No matter when she entered, it was standing there and waiting. After four consecutive days of being beaten, the fifth she refused to fight.

She got a  _ real  _ bruise that day, from where her face made sudden contact with the living stone that made the floor of the place. Spitting out a little bloody phlegm from a split lip, she rolled over just in time to dodge a second blow. 

_ “You would leave an opponent at your back?” _

It took less time than usual for her to lose - being unarmed - but more time than she would have thought.

“Why?” She’d breathed shallowly long enough for the phantom wounds to fade, though the ones on her face and hands wouldn’t. There was an odd comfort in that - a comfort she didn’t particularly want to consider right now. “Why do this? The Blades and Disciples were allies!”

_ “You have yet to prove yourself either, though you show promise. The Disciples were loyal until one person led them astray. One person and the weariness of centuries of vigilance. The Vigilant grew careless. What has happened over the centuries to the Merciful?” _

_ Nothing!  _ Whit bit back the cry, realizing it was instinct and hurt rather than something she was sure on. Hadn’t she wondered the same at times, especially after coming here? That couldn’t be doubt sown by these spirits, not when she’d wondered even in the Blightlands…

She closed her eyes, still laying on the ground. Hot tears trickled past her closed lids, but she stayed quiet.  _ Nothing. We have lost nothing. Surely we haven’t - mercy has a sharp edge, but we have our place. We have our calling. We guard the truth, but we also seek to stop the abuses. We are Blades. We didn’t fade in our sheathe, the way the Disciples lost themselves to isolation and...no, no we haven’t. _

At the moment, Whit knew the truth. She didn’t know.

She  _ didn’t know.  _

The quality of the light had changed by the time she forced herself to open her eyes and sit up, aching from the words rather than a blow. She wasn’t ready to think. Not now. Instead, she found her axes and whirled against the pells. Even through her anger, she could hear Pollen and Olem.

_ ‘Watch those feet! Doesn’t matter what you feel, your enemy doesn’t care. Pay attention!’ _

After the first flurry of blows, she caught herself and took two deep breaths.  _ Focus.  _ Her anger never lasted long - maybe that was her mother in her. The doubt still lurked, cavernous. Whit started at the pells again. This time it wasn’t to get out emotion, but to spend it. She focused on each breath, each swing. The only sounds were those of metal hitting hardwood and the soft shuffle of her worn boots.

_ ‘Axes confuse people. They don’t see them as weapons, but tools. On the other hand, they confuse your body, too. They don’t balance naturally. It’s why so few choose them.’ _

Well, her body was already confused, so why not? It would give her an edge, and the practical purpose also appealed to her. Her body, her mind…

The strikes stayed even, conscious habit letting the off-hand axe help give weight and balance to prevent the blow from spinning her too far from her center, then the two traded places. There was something she found soothing in it. With one axe, you had to focus. With two, your attention had to be entirely on your body. Whit had enough scars to prove she’d learned that lesson. Axes bit, no matter where they landed.

Harsh breathing formed a counter to the rhythm she’d established, but she wanted more. Instead of slowing, she sped up the pattern. Not a lot, but it stayed in time with her quickening pulse. How far could she push today? Overhand, spin into an underhand, back to a backhand across followed by the shoulder cut down. The challenge was to make sure to use all the strikes, work all the muscles, without establishing a pattern.

_ ‘People like patterns. Dance without one. Otherwise, you won’t be dancing long.’ _

Patterns were a sign of humanity, but they were also death. Patterns made you predictable. ‘ _ Certainty is its own pattern, because we as people like it. We like knowledge, we find comfort in things as they are - thus they will always be. It’s easier to stay in an unpleasant constant than to take the chance for unknown happiness. Even with Andraste’s song reaching into the Imperium itself, most slaves chose to close their ears. It took Hessarian’s mercy to open mine, and even then - I was  _ given  _ freedom. It is precious, but...I  _ know  _ that what I lived in was not good. I knew that then, even though my position was safer than many. The comfort of that place made me blind. Doubt is the gift Andraste and Hessarian gave me. Maybe I cling all the tighter because I didn’t have the courage to reach for it myself.’ _

Trefir’s words rambled sometimes, but that didn’t change their wisdom.

Whit lost her place in the pattern, overbalancing as she went for another strike. Luck had the blade bite into the pell rather than her thigh again, almost pulling it from her hand. Panting and heart throbbing, she sheathed her right axe to use both hands and yank at the left.

The hardwood gave it up grudgingly, sending her stumbling back. She considered it.. The sweat gluing her hair to her temples and nape convinced her it was time to stop. Slowly she walked around the room, trying to cool down in the space she had. Back home, Pollen might have sent them for a jog around the fortress or a climb up the switchback. Here, she had to be more creative. After walking, she returned to the pell, using it to stretch out her shoulders, chest, and calves. 

After her pulse had mostly slowed and her shirt had turned clammy, Whit headed back into ‘her’ room. As much as the water appealed to her, the first thing she did was take her axes back out and inspect them. Despite the abuse of the long practice session, they were only slightly dull - no nicks. Given what she was using them for, she let them stay that way, then went to wash. 

The water was just as dead as always; neither warm nor cold, it at least got rid of the sweat. Paired with the scrap of soap she had yet, it was almost refreshing. Whit scrubbed her hair as well, then dried off and pulled on her other set of clothes. She’d had three to start, and lost one to...was it the almost swamp? Yes. Then she’d found another couple in the Blightlands, and gave up her first shirt for rags. The mountains cost her the last set from home.

_ Home. _

_ Now  _ the spirit’s words, left to grow unchecked, reached back out.  _ ‘The Vigilant grew careless. What has happened to the Blades in the centuries?’ _

She was ill-equipped to answer the question. She knew the ancient histories, and those she’d read as she copied them.

The Blades of Mercy were founded by Trefir and those who joined him to take Hessarian’s Blade far from the Imperium. They journeyed with the Disciples, two different bands merely twigs among the stream of Andraste’s followers who dispersed at her death.  _ Dispersed,  _ not abandoned hope. The Clans of Almarri returned to their homelands. The elves went south as well, yearning for their promised home somewhere far from those who’d turned them from their immortal pride into slaves.

What were the Blades meant for? Trefir said it was to carry out Andraste’s mercy. They were an order built around the Blade - built around combat. Yet they were built  _ out of  _ slaves and the Almarri who had never submitted. The Disciples guarded the Ashes. The Blades followed the Sword of Mercy and its wielder.

_ You were lost. _ _   
_ _ As were we all. Grant me purpose. _ _   
_ _ You were unhearing. _ _   
_ _ As were we all. Let me obey. _ __   
_ You are the sword. _ _   
_ _ As are we all. Wield me in Her  _ __ name.

It was loyalty that the Blades valued. Loyalty to Andraste, loyalty to Trefir...loyalty to the one who led them. Once, they had followed the one who carried the Blade of Mercy, the one weapon that stayed ever-sharp, that was a gift to them from Andraste herself.

Yet was that what they stayed loyal? Three centuries,and they had not had the certainty of the Blade of Mercy. When Orrim brought it to the Temple and Disciples, it was because of the Exalted March and the fears of discovery. If the Sword was found, then the Blades could be re-forged. Without it, what then?  _ ‘Hessarian’s Blade remains true, and remains safe. Only one chosen by Andraste and blessed with clear sight will succeed at a true Challenge to the one who leads our mission. We will survive. We have survived centuries, we will continue to do so. Our history will guide us.’ _

Orrim had said little else. The Blade was safe. There were ‘trials.’

But Orrim died three years later in Challenge. It was said he died with a smile on his face, his purpose done. Another’s hand was needed.

_ ‘Many things are said. Which are true, and which do we merely want to believe?’ _

She shook her head. Doubt had its place, but she couldn’t question  _ everything  _ she knew.

_ ‘You are no son of mine! You have lied - why?’ His hand drove into her traitor belly, worsening the new, twisting pain that came with the blood.  _

_ She’d been desperate to regain his love, terrified for the first time. ‘I’m still your son!’ Now she noticed how high her voice was. It was no more than Cameron’s, she knew, but it felt that way. ‘I will be! You’ll see!’ _

_ He’d never quite believed her, and the knowing lies built up like the silt in the caverns. It had grown easier over time. _

What didn’t she question? When didn’t she wonder?

_ ‘Mercy has its sharp point. Hope is the child of doubt - and faith its offspring.’  _

What should the Blades be? They needed to eat; some of them could hunt and others could sell their hard-won skill with weapons. They had since Calenhad united the tribes, and there was a country with wars to fight. The Blades preserved the history of what Andraste’s Chant had been - that was proven necessary by Emperor Drakon of Orlais and the Chantry he established. People would change things, especially without magic to preserve the words written by those who were there. The Blades  _ doubted.  _ Despite the certainty of their purpose, they doubted the means. They questioned, they sought out the Chant every few centuries. They watched the fall of the Dales after the Second Blight, brought on by both continued hatred and a lack of trust.

When, though, did they  _ act?  _ Only in small ways. They were a small group and couldn’t change history. Not without revealing themselves and risking what they preserved. A few became Wardens, and were lost to the whole after a time. They didn’t share everything - the secrets of the Wardens, they said, had no bearing on the Blades, but were necessary. The  _ Wardens  _ were necessary. Some actually joined the Chantry as lay brothers and sisters, gaining access to the troves of records there, but those records were not whole.

Certainty was found only in each other, the promise of the Sword of Mercy, and the ancient knowledge they worked to keep.

The rest, they lived by fear, doubt...and their counterparts faith and hope. One hundred twenty-some years ago, they were found and hunted. That was when they made their secret way to the Storm Coast. Ferelden had always been the ‘safest’ of the sheathes the Blades had, since their early days between the mountains and the Dales of the elves. That was long, long ago, though, when the Blades still had enough of pure elven blood to be accepted, if grudgingly. As tensions grew, they had left. They left the Hunterhorns out of respect for the dwarves and the continued challenges north. They refused to live too near the Frostbacks, but for a while had stayed in the Wilds - and another time, near the dwarves of Orzammar.

_ ‘The Blades have survived the Imperium, Blight, time, and the Seekers. The Chantry hunted - who can hide better than those with the blood of slaves? The Seekers killed - but they could not kill hope or desperate cunning.’ _

The last discovery was why they went to the harsh, beautiful Storm Coast, but that also shaped them. The sheath must fit the blade; though in their case, both sheath and blade were malleable. “One hundred twenty years,” she mused. “There was no mention then of a dragon.”

_ “There was a dragon, near that time,”  _ a voice responded in Tevene.  _ “It came and burned just past the village of Haven. The chapel that had been called ‘Chantry’ in Andraste’s honor stood through its midst. Thus did faith change. She was majestic, and humanity has always been called by the dragons.” _

Once, it had been the Old Gods slumbering - but they whispered and answered. When a dragon came down and the place of worship was untouched, Whit could see why the temptation was there.

“What did they do?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Past life, past wanderings whence Fade-path ends at Golden City’s gate  
The City, once golden, once glory’s home, now blackened and stained.  
Wander where, we faithful who seek to join you, parted no more?  
Changes unceasing twist further, spirits and demons outpour  
Your realm, oh Maker, a place your second-born journey not sly  
Keep safe, sight on the city, your Throne abandoned - Maker, why?  
I beg you return; I wait  
For your face; I adore  
Your glory, song’s mirror dry  
Please, Maker, I long for your side.**

**

_ “It was a sign, the Revered Mother said. The Revered Father of the time was less certain, but they agreed that the dragon should not be attacked or driven away. It was another layer of protection. But dragons,”  _ she continued,  _ “are fickle beasts. Only their own are safe from their hunger. So Mother Whintia dug through the books taken in haste, and the first of the Disciples drank dragon’s blood.”  _ There was almost a sigh.  _ “At that point, the path of some were set. Humans can change a dragon’s behavior through such rituals, but the change goes both ways. Lore was misunderstood. Histories were abandoned for taut vigilance and the shifting relationship with the High Dragon. Such small things led to the Disciples’ fall, leaving only the forever-faithful, forever-unchanging. What Seeker can threaten such as us?” _

She could almost see the slow descent, piece by piece. It was easier to believe what you could see; easier to trust in power visible than faith alone.

**

Each day, he was waiting for her. Each day, she faced him. Each day, she fell. Whit worked to stand again from the final blow: this one, she had almost managed to see in time. The fights were getting longer, even if she kept losing. She shook her head and turned toward the shelves and weapon oil.

Whit wasn’t sure why she had never offered the spirit any of the formal courtesies. In either case, there was only a moment before air shifted behind her, and the hammer dropped her to her knees again.

“What are you doing! You already beat me!”

Perhaps the antagonistic relationship was why.

_ “You would leave a foe undefeated at your back? Not all are foolish to assume an opponent knocked down will not rise again.” _

It hadn’t truly been a hard blow, but the break still made her upset. It was...unfair. Cruel. 

_ It was what Daddy would have done,  _ a soft voice said.  _ Or in training, Olem - even Pollen.  _ She bit her lip. Was the spirit right? Perhaps - it fit with what she knew. 

“Was that what happened to you?”

The fact he answered surprised her.  _ “We were hunted. The Archon did not want a victory incomplete, and hearing Her ashes were taken from the pyre angered and worried him. Those of Her armies who feared failure wanted someone to lash out at. Few understood what was done, or why. The Tevinter armies, the magisters robbed of slaves - they wanted revenge. A downed foe is not defeated, but easier to attack. Watch scavengers, and listen to those of the elves; vultures circle the dying, not the dead. So it was with us. Some few wanted the hope we carried to be made available to all. They also did not understand.” _

The words rolled around in her mind, tinged with an odd...if she didn’t know better, she would have said yearning.  _ Did  _ she know better? Knowledge. Knowing.  _ Knowledge is the death of understanding.  _

She sighed. “Why do you do this?”

_ “I exist to guard - eternal vigilance. I also exist to test. What lies within is not forbidden to all, but protected from unbelievers. Those who seek with a pure heart are welcome.” _

“What if they don’t? What then?”

He didn’t seem to react to her mild challenge.  _ “The gauntlet of this place lets the weak-willed and the faithless be consumed by their own flaws. It was not just the Disciples of blood, but those of us who stand guard. It is not just both of us, but the other pitfalls of the Temple. That which is guarded, is protected by more than it seems.” _

_ ‘That which is guarded.’  _

“Do you mean the Ashes, or the Sword?”

_ “I mean what I have said.” _

Her nails dug into her palms as she fought down another shout, or worse, a flood of tears. She didn’t want riddles, but answers. “How long until I’ve proven myself?”

How long would she need to stay in this place until she could reclaim the Sword for the sake of the Blades? It had already been longer than she had ever dreamed.

_ “As long as it takes for you to prove your worth - or die.” _

The last rang in her empty heart, but Whit didn’t hear any warning or desire. The spirit’s voice remained as tempered as it had ever been. Unlike Daddy, it never rose in anger or spite, never hissed a bloody warning. The spirit stated things as fact, and she couldn’t tell which was that, and which was its opinion, or its purpose - or a guess.  _ Spirits reflect. _

What did this one reflect, or was it truly a soul bound to this place? None of that mattered. What did was the former.  _ ‘As long as it takes to prove your worth.’  _ How could she prove herself? What were these things looking for?

Asking would accomplish nothing, so Whit decided to look toward one of the closed doors, her axes loose, but not drawn. What would come next? And...would she be able to return? There was no way to know other than to try.

Besides, what did this place have but unwinnable combat and unanswerable questions?

The door opened easily onto another blue-veined, featureless corridor. Was this the door she’d entered by? Panic caught her throat - she  _ couldn’t  _ go through that time again. She closed it and stared at the silent, iron-hard wood.

There was food here. Water enough, a place to keep the blood moving, and even companionship of a sort.

Whit closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the door.  _ Of a sort.  _ It was a bitter recognition of her own weakness and fear, but it was also truth. The two spirits she’d encountered would speak with her. The one also ‘trained’ with her, if in a particularly brutal way. No, that wasn’t true. The training was no more brutal than she knew - less so, if she admitted that injuries weren’t real. 

Despite the number of times she’d taken full blows, her bones hadn’t cracked or broken, and she had no real bruises. The once from falling onto her face, and the scrapes that came with that. A twisted ankle from her own stumbling backward, though that healed quickly as well. It was that the warrior gave no feedback, no suggestions. She had to learn everything herself.

_ ‘Who will teach a slave? They are expected to learn from experience.’ _

Well, if Trefir could...no, she was no Trefir. Though Trefir was not the only slave who had learned from experience, and learned well enough to survive and follow Andraste.

“If they could, I will.” There was no master here, there was no threat of death; at least she didn’t think so. There was also no escape that she could see.  _ ‘Don’t lie, even to yourself.’  _

“Oh, Gidgit, if only you knew.” The advice was well-meaning, but her friend had never known the lies that laid the foundation for her life. It was still true. “I know. I can leave, even if I don’t know how far. But I’m afraid.”

She turned from the door and headed back into her room. There were more books here, more journals - though still not many.  _ ‘There were few among Andraste’s closest adherents who could write. There was no need, in the clans or their wilderness homes. The long winters meant time to sharpen memories, and tales it was said lived by their telling.’ _

The scraps of knowledge floated through her mind, the journals becoming her nameless companions. Was that a woman or man? All she knew was that the writing was Tevene, so likely that of a former slave. Even that was only a guess, but they were the closest companions she had.

**

If she was going to remain in this space for a while, it was time to make it less of a cage. There was nothing she could do to make it  _ look  _ different, but she tried. Her clothes, she folded and put on a lower shelf rather than using her pack. The spare blanket joined them. The rags and remnants were tucked away into the bathing chamber. Other than that? She took two days after the morning combat and training to work on her armor. There was plenty of leather available for her needs, and she had given enough to this place to take something in return. It was harder than she’d want, but she used her dagger to carefully cut apart the seams on the strained strap, setting it aside. There were other torn or very worn sections; she hunted through the scraps and pieces until she found several that should fit. The color might be off, but appearance mattered less than survival.

She would leave. She  _ would.  _ Whit forced back doubt with her heart’s drumbeat. She would find the Blade of Mercy and return as she’d sworn - but that meant she had to be ready for the journey back.

If she didn’t believe it, she’d go mad.

The first day was spent measuring, marking with pinpricks of blood, and cutting. It was painful work, trying to cut leather with only a boot knife, but she was a Blade. If an ideal tool didn’t exist, that didn’t mean you simply quit. Tasks needed to be done, and that was that.

After, it was all she could do to stretch and jog the perimeter of the large room that had begun to define her existence, trying to loosen tight muscles and cramped tendons. Bland travel rations and a journal from another Disciple waited in ‘her’ room.

On the second day, aching muscles in her hands, wrists, and lower back protested what she’d done. With a groan, Whit rolled out of the bed and chewed some mint she’d managed to save for this long. There was no point in eating, not when she’d have to face the warrior. Instead, she tucked rations in a pocket of her pants and stepped out. 

Given how her hands felt, she didn’t try to draw her axes.  _ ‘A hammer gives reach, but it’s no match against a knife. If you’re far, you die. If you’re close, the hammer can’t strike.’  _ As soon as he began speaking, she stepped forward and inside his range. It protected her from the weapon, but meant she had to writhe out of the way of his stomping kick.

_ ‘Muscles are good, as is height - but you’re fast, Whit. Use it instead of abandoning it to be what you aren’t!’ _

Something different happened. After an attempt to move back - one that this time she didn’t allow and moved with him, he dropped his hammer and grabbed her. Grappling with a spirit - his touch sank into her skin just enough to feel  _ wrong  _ before tightening. Instinct pushed her to writhe desperately out of the first, breaking his grip when she twisted under his arm. It didn’t last much longer than that before she yielded, gasping with pain.

Whatever he said was lost to the pounding of her blood. Whit bit her lip to keep from making any other sound.  _ She  _ had pushed - and had changed things. It had  _ changed.  _ If only she knew whether she liked that fact.

Once he vanished, she tried to understand. There was no way she could match his strength. There must be another way, even if she couldn’t see it yet. Setting the thought aside to root, Whit ate a quick meal of the pressed bar in her pocket, then went back to the workbench. 

It was her future she prepared for. Today, she ran the thumb-width strap she’d cut over and over against the corner of the bench. The leather was too stiff, but it was easier to soften than to try and reinforce the one she needed to replace. It was painfully slow, but Whit knew she had nothing but time. When she couldn’t bear to do more, it was time to eat more rations, find water, and stretch her aching back. Laying on the floor of the main space, she stared at the unreachable windows and their wan light.

Was it snow that caused the haze? Surely it was. It had only been...what, was it Umbralis now? The year couldn’t have changed yet. Back home, Pollen would be even grouchier than usual, while Char and Coal curled up together in their corner for warmth. The hearths would be banked at night and cold by day, saving the wood for when activity didn’t warm the blood. Fruits would be winter-hard, pulled up from their one dug cellar along with the roots and vegetables that could last.

Winter was her least favorite season because it was so uncertain. On the one hand, the heavy furs meant it was even easier to hide the curves she shouldn’t have. On the other, there was less to distract Daddy’s temper when the rare blizzard came through from the south. He needed to be busy doing things, and winter was a time to refit, craft, and study.

Maybe she’d find something to study here.

Realizing what the others would be doing only made the solitude harder to bear. These were the times to joke with Cameron that their handwriting should have been worse if they didn’t want to keep being asked to re-write, or argue with Gidgit over whatever specific story of Trefir’s or part of the Chant had caught someone’s attention.

“That’s enough of a break,” Whit told the empty room, her voice huskier than usual. Then she got up and went back to the pells. She didn’t want to think anymore.

Unfortunately, the thoughts kept coming back.

When she tried to read the journal, she wondered whether Gidgit had started recording the names and deeds of the past year. 

When she tried to sleep, it was even worse.

Twice she woke, sure that Char or Coal had snuffled at her or whined, unhappy that they couldn’t join her on her narrow pallet. Her dreams were filled of the others. Pollen, no longer dancing the new year that she was now-certain she’d miss, not since his wife died seven years ago. Cameron, trying to impress the girls their age and failing to drag  _ her  _ into his antics, and Gidgit determinedly ignoring all of it to sit and talk with their senior healer about something.

There were the autumn feasts long past, where they’d steam up a ram or two, and send Olem out to bring back the giant fish he’d managed the trick of hunting with spear and a narrow boat. He said he rode one halfway to Amaranthine once before it had bled out. She would always slip half her meat to Daddy’s mabari, and promise them more the next day, so she could fill up on baked apples and walnuts dusted in dried embrium and cloves. It was one of the only times of plenty they could really count on, and they made the most of it before smoking anything remaining for the leaner days of winter.

The Storm Coast wasn’t a place of famine; it hadn’t been touched by the Blight, or the droughts the years before. However, it  _ also  _ wasn’t a place of complacent plenty, like the portions of South Reach seemed to be when she passed through. It was a harsh land, but fair. If you worked, you could get what you needed from its rocky clearings and thin soil, or the animals that thrived in it. Pine nuts, oily but so tasty fresh out of the fire; birds and oysters along the beaches and cliffs; and sometimes even a lucky nest of turtle eggs filled their diet with protein beyond the goats and predators. Grain they usually managed to barter for, carefully far from their fortress, along with ore and paper. It was a good life, she thought with the experience of half a year of travel.

It wasn’t enough to truly judge, but it was. There was chanting, and even a few songs accompanied by pipes and drums. It was also far away, so far away. It wasn’t just the miles, but the seasons.

“Will you have started to mourn me?”

Daddy wouldn’t. He hadn’t been willing to mourn her mother for years, not until long past when the rest of the Blades had symbolically laid her to rest, willing her soul through the Fade to the Maker’s side. It was always hard when a Blade vanished.

Now it was  _ her  _ turn to vanish.

“No. I’ll come back. Somehow,” she vowed to herself, abandoning the last attempt at sleep. “You’ll see. I’ll bring back the Sword of Mercy, Hessarian’s Blade, and…”

And then what?

That was always the moment that caught her mind and made it stumble. What would she do if - no,  _ when - _ she recovered it? It could only be wielded, they believed, by one chosen by Andraste. It was Andraste who willed it to go with Trefir, and Hessarian bowed his head and surrendered it. Each time a new First Blade was needed, the Sword proved their worth. Sometimes, it was given willingly. Others called for the Challenge. If they could wield it, if they could hold it, then that was all the proof they needed that it was time for a change of the hand that wielded the Blades.

One hand. One united Blade, no matter how many of them there were. It started to change, though. The Sword was gone, and then what was Challenge? A call on the spirit of the Blade, its memory.  _ Let Andraste choose the winner, Andraste choose the hand of mercy.  _ A First Blade could yield. A First Blade could be defeated - or a First Blade could be killed. It was never certain, but they continued to believe.

Somehow, they continued to believe even after the First Blade stopped going to speak with the Disciples, stopped having the imprimatur of some level of blessing. It was that or question everything exactly as they had to trust and work as one to hide. One hundred thirty years ago, a Seeker had found a Blade of Hessarian as they made their way back toward the then-fortress. That chance meeting turned to bloodshed. They were lucky: but the blood shed was the Seeker’s.

Thus, they left the mountains that had guarded them and looked for a new home.

Thus, they no longer contacted the Disciples for fear of drawing attention upon the Bride’s ashes.

...and somehow, thus the Disciples descended into worship of the dragon that appeared at the Temple.

_Thus_ , what might have happened to the Blades over those centuries?

**

The days blurred, even if she tried to keep them separate. Scents existed, but were only those of leather, oil, and sweat. There was no patter of rain or hiss of sleet and snow - no wailing gusts of wind or sudden freezes to make her long for another blanket. The light through the practice room’s windows dimmed and brightened. 

Time passed.

She finished repairing her armor.

She managed to defeat the spirit and his hammer one day. It startled her so much she almost dropped her axes, staring at the man who dropped to his knee, where blood poured and faded before it stained the stone.

“I’m sorry!”

He chuckled, the hollowness long since familiar. “I am not, child. It has been - a long time.”  _ Long and long again,  _ the weary tone of the word rang through and deepened the Almarri they spoke. “To learn through struggle is a challenging thing. Can you repeat it?”

Could she? “I don’t know,” Whit admitted.

“Ah, wisdom.” The word was close to that of ‘evasion,’ but the difference was clear to one who grew up speaking the tongue. “So, would-be Blade, will you finish the combat?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She blinked. Was the spirit wanting death - or release? “You yielded - there is no mercy in more unless...unless you ask for it. But I don’t even know your name.”

She hadn’t thought to ask - not in all the time he had been her constant, if frustrating, companion in the mornings. Sometimes he would drop pieces of lore, coloring in the history she’d once known of the bond between Disciple and Blade. Other times, he talked only of weapons and combat - or more confusingly, in the riddles that suited Almarri so well, of what might be to come.

“You have not asked it,” he replied in an echo of her thoughts. “But if you did, would you believe the answer I gave?”

The blood was still pouring and vanishing, but it seemed to not bother him.

Would she? “I don’t know. I don’t even know if you are spirit or soul, bound to the Temple. But I’d like to hear it.”

“Ah,” he sighed. “Who would be a gatekeeper to one of Hessarian’s Blades? None but the man who made them necessary. The one who was there, the one who knew his own mercy, and who swore his own oath to make up for the one he had forsworn.”

It was a riddle of sorts - the same as they used over the winters, or were part of the festivals, of teaching and the rite of adulthood. Whit hadn’t realized that the Blades had kept that much of the Almarri, but it made sense. None of that would answer it, though.

Who made...the Blades necessary? Hessarian’s...who had only converted and used the Sword to kill Andraste...who had been sentenced to burn by the Archon...but only after…

“Maferath,” she breathed. “Maferath?”

Now he also stood, leaning on his hammer. “Aye. I learned the sword, and abandoned it again for a weapon that would crush rather than pierce. I had lost my taste for blood.” Now she could see again the grey streaked in his hair, and the fine lines when his skin didn’t waver in her sight. Those lines were more than age, they were a deadly weight of grief.

Perhaps.

“Are you he, or a spirit drawn and bound in his likeness?”

“The Blades remember, do they? The Chantry does not, but yes. More of the Tevene slaves - the leaf-eared - chose to follow Trefir than came with us to build the Temple. Would you believe?”

What spirits could be drawn to this place? Whit had read the journals; there were themes woven through the angular script, for all the writers were mostly Tevene and once-Altus or mage-slave. Weariness crossed with hope, despair with faith, and a grinding sort of fear peppered the words as the Temple was built. Only later came the sense of perseverance and vigilance. Were he a spirit, which would have chosen  _ this  _ form, this role?

Spirits, she had read once, were of a single thing. This one in front of her seemed more than that, something different entirely.

Instead of answering, she sheathed her axes and put her hand to her forehead, then heart. It was Tevene, not Almarri, but it would suit. “Maferath, I greet thee. I am Whit, of the Blades of Hessarian.”

He stood tall, towering over her even more than Daddy ever did. Instead of repeating her gesture, he stayed with the Almarri, thumping his fist against his opposite bicep. “Whit, you are welcome here. I am Maferath, last of the Disciples - first and last, to my sorrow.”

There were too many questions for her to bring one to her lips, so she chose to nod briefly again.

Wait.

“Why the combat? Why every day?”

“You claimed the Blades,” was the simple answer. “It is easy to die by them. Living by them is more difficult.”

_ Living by them is more difficult. _

_ ‘Death is the only certainty of a slave. Hope...hope is born of doubt. If you cannot question, you cannot hope.’ _

“I see.”

This time, Maferath wavered and faded even as she watched. Maferath, husband of Andraste, and her betrayer. His name among the Disciples...that she hadn’t remembered seeing. Few of the names were written.

They had chosen vigilance, and their stories were not those of the Blades. But now Whit wondered, even as she cut at the stubborn leather with her narrow knife. There was leather enough, and a spare jerkin would only be useful.  _ Why had she not read the names of the first Disciples?  _ Was it a deliberate omission, or were there records and stories that the Blades kept, but she hadn’t seen?


	11. Chapter 11

**Gather the Holds! Augurs as one, warriors and gods war-ready  
To battle, to freedom, chain-breaking hold-beast and hold steady  
Slaves freed refind home holds, holds swear to break Tevinter’s blood-chain  
Maker, bless us; turn your face toward warriors, toward gods all acclaim  
The Holds readied, we march toward Magister and corrupted blight  
The blightlands fear-stained and god-scarce, desperate for your golden light  
Maker be with us, we pray  
Stand by us, turn not away  
As we march forward to fight  
Husband of bone, husband...I am your bride.**

**

The mornings were no less stressful - or painful. The difference was that now, the creature who called himself Maferath was willing to discuss. She could ask him to repeat a blow once she was able to stand again, or he would talk about counters he had ‘seen’ in his ‘lifetime’ centuries ago - and among the Disciples here since.

“We are not Blades, but vigilance required more than merely watching and remaining hidden. Even a scorpion must use its tail.”

Whit didn’t know what a scorpion was, but she knew the vipers of the Coast, and nodded. It made sense. “Why the Frostbacks? Why here?”

They moved through a sweaty dance at three-quarters speed - well, sweaty for her - as they talked. “These mountains had been the home of my Tribe,” Maferath responded simply. “Most of the Disciples as well, or near here. The lowlands are good for hunting, but the mountains are safety and nearer the Maker’s throne. Andraste looked up to His demesne. We could do no less.”

Panting, she nodded. His speech was musical, with a pattern that flowed separate from their blows. Unlike her, it was not punctuated by grunts or hesitations. Spirits did not need to breathe.

“How long?”

He pulled back as her axe sank into his arm with a nod. The temporary blood no longer startled her; it was yet another thing about this place. “You know how long. For over nine centuries, now, we have watched as you have honed yourselves. Our watch soured, but the strongest of us stayed pure. We united to provide the last protection. Only the truly faithful, only those who sought Her blessing for another, could pass.”

“The Slayer?”

Maferath attacked again, the blood gone as quickly as her pain when she fell. “Which slayer, Blade? We who are made for battle have all shed blood.”

_ She  _ hadn’t - not unless he counted animals. Did he? Or his blood, but did that count? “Urthemiel’s.”

“Ah,” the spirit murmured. “Yes. Urthemiel in his twisted beauty. I see now. Perhaps it was the same man. The Slayer was of the dragon here, of the Disciples turned from Andraste’s path and their oaths. So he was granted leave to try. He succeeded, and left.”

So few words for something so extreme! She could hardly imagine - a  _ man,  _ who slayed a dragon and was used by the Disciples of old to cleanse the rot from those of recent past. “To have seen…”

“Is that the duty of a Blade?”

“No.” Her teeth snapped shut as she almost missed the next spin away, her axes loose in her hands. No. The Disciples had rotted…

Had the Blades?

Was  _ that  _ why…?

No. No, that couldn’t have been why the Sword remained lost. That was  _ respect,  _ not rot. Trust, not…

Doubt.

She swallowed.

The training went on and  _ on,  _ until as always a blow came through and she couldn’t get up as soon as the pain faded to near memory. It throbbed in her temples, but her muscles trembled against it.

“Well done,” the spirit said unexpectedly.

She closed her eyes and fought a new battle - this one against herself.

_ “Well done, Whitling!” Olem still used that nickname, the same as Daddy did. It was the first time her axes had slipped past his offense and taken their own tithe of pain. “I didn’t think you had it in you!” _

_ She laughed, high for a moment on the triumph. “It’s all I have in me!” _

_ She rarely boasted. She shouldn’t have then. _

_ “So, Whitling, you’re an expert now? Come and show me.” _

_ Daddy was the one who spoke, hearty joviality a mask for the coals she saw in his eyes. _

_ She didn’t last more than five heavy blows. _

_ He towered over her. “You’ll need more you, Whit, if you want to best more than a green lad. Keep training.”  _

_ Olem paled, but said nothing more than the silent Pollen. Her tears were lost into the packed dirt, buried under sweat and the weight of belief. She  _ wasn’t  _ enough. ‘Keep training.’ _

_ So she did. _

_ Somehow, she would make Daddy proud again. _

When she opened her eyes, they were hot and wet - and she was alone. For whatever reason, the spirits of this place seemed to give her privacy when memories bruised. It was a small mercy, she supposed, though it meant there was nothing to do in the aftermath but think. Perhaps the mix of guilt, longing, and anger was too much for spirits of a different purpose. Perhaps it reminded their own ancient past, and the Disciples who first came here.

He would be proud.

She would see him smile when she brought the Sword of Mercy back. She knew it. She  _ knew  _ it.

Whit shook her head. Once, she might have believed. Now? She knew she was lying to herself. She knew none of it.

_ Well done.  _ Maferath  _ must  _ know she was no son; spirits looked into the heart, not at the physical. Or was she, despite her body? She’d lived as one for so long, trying to be what Daddy wanted.

Would a spirit care about the physical?

Here, none of them had called her ‘girl’ or boy.’ She was merely the interloper, the seeker, the ‘would-be’ Blade.

She sighed again and slowly pushed herself to her knees and shaking arms. The strands of her hair hung in front of her until she shook her head just to watch drops of sweat make little black circles on the stone. Then it clung to her humid skin. She would dry soon enough.

For all the training she received from the spirit, it never included either warm-up or cooling down. If she did nothing, she would pay in pain tomorrow, Whit knew. Therefore, she pushed herself again until she was sitting on her heels. From here, she could shake out her wrists and shoulders to check for strained muscles or pulled tendons. Rotating her neck, she felt one vertebrae pop, then a second.

It was longer before she could stand and start to walk the perimeter. Slowly today, but she still pushed herself to move, stretching every time she reached ‘her’ door again.

“How long has it been?”

Her hair was down to below her ears - it hadn’t been so long. She kept it shorn short, like most of the men of the Blades. She’d never…

How long did it take hair to grow?

She blinked. What did she look like now?

The next circle, she stretched and then went in, drawn by her questions. She hadn’t looked at herself in...years. Why did it matter now of all times?

The buckets of water were there, but in this flat space, they were cold and grey. Whit drug one back out into the practice space, ignoring the screams of her overworked muscles.  _ ‘Muscles whine worse than a girl, but they grow stronger. You’ll see, Whit.’ _

It was all the little things...here, in the stronger light, there was a ripple of reflection. Why she was so curious, she couldn’t say - but she looked.

The angular lines she’d chosen to symbolize adulthood showed against her winter-pale skin. The sharp cheekbones from both bloodlines warred against the square jaw she’d gotten from...somewhere. Daddy, perhaps, though his beard hid any confirmation. Her dark hair and granite eyes were his, though, just as the wild storm of freckles were from her mother.

It was...a face. The face of a young man who’d worked, beset only by a handful of scars. Even those were mild, hidden by the freckles and the tattoo over the left side of her face. She traced the thorns and wheels around her eye and cheekbone, the narrow arrowheads that fanned from her lip to her chin. Three dots along her forehead - fear, doubt, and hope - the foundations of faith marked her mind.

Her too-thick lips stuck out, dark enough to be noticed. Her mother’s, like her freckles.  _ Her mother’s daugh - _

Whit struck the water with a cry, splintering the reflection into ripples that swam and fought each other. She didn’t care. She  _ wouldn’t  _ care. Her mother had decided to have a son, irregardless of Andraste and the Maker’s plans. 

Instead of thinking more, she stripped here in the open, baring the body she’d hated along with Daddy for the past five years. It was compact and muscled, as suited a warrior, her mother’s freckles defiant even there. Naked but for the sweat she’d earned, she dunked her shirt in the water, then used it to bare herself of even sweat. The spirits hadn’t cared.

_ Would Maferath care, now that she forced her gender at him, in the space he had claimed and guarded? _

The shirt hit the wall with a splat, hanging suspended for a moment before slapping the stone floor. Whit pulled her thin-honed knife from her boot, and turned. That door - that wasn’t the one she came in, was it?

She didn’t care. Not now.

Yanking open the ancient wood, she stared at the featureless corridor, then stepped across the threshold. A woodsman’s habit left a thin trail-mark on the wide grain near eye-height. Then she turned, determined to go on.

Determined?

_ ‘Be honest, Whit. You’re running.’ _

Her stride lengthened. 

“There’s nothing to run from!” 

Her bare footfalls were silent.

“So what if I am?”

_ Coward. _

“I’ll go back! I swear I will!”  _ So long as this place let her. _

_ If  _ it let her. The insanity of what she’d let anger drive her to sunk in. Bad enough that she’d left her home with little but hope and basic supplies for a week, but now? She was naked with a palm-length knife and her Crest. Axes, armor, pack, blanket,  _ clothes,  _ were all abandoned in her thoughtless anger and shame.

She swallowed, but her feet kept moving. How many strides? How far?

She hadn’t counted.

If her feet wouldn’t turn, then neither would her head. She kept going.

**

Sense ambushed her just before she turned the sharp corner. What in Hessarian’s name was she doing? She was  _ naked.  _ This wasn’t even a case of no armor, there was  _ nothing  _ to protect from even a rough bit of stone. She paused long enough to try collect her thoughts - but there weren’t many.

_ ‘If you can’t think, observe.’ _

Whit snapped into Pollen’s old instructions. The corridor was still a corridor. Diffuse, shadowless light didn’t give much to go on, and the blue-veined stone looked dull. The thick blocks were still there - timeworn, but no less sturdy than when they were laid over the cavern floor. That was still whetstone-smooth under her toes. She ran a finger along the stone, then snapped back when she brushed one of the blue veining in it. Whatever it was, it made her head tingle and her stomach lurch. 

_ More magic. _

Well, it had been here longer than she had, and the Disciples had been fine for centuries. She focused back on the rest, but there wasn’t much. Her skin was still damp. She finger-combed her wet hair away from her eyes, her right still holding the knife. The temperature was slightly cool, as it had been, and there were no breezes to bring any sense of place, or any scents should the magic let them exist here.

That left hearing - and it was so still, she could hear her own breathing and heart.

Nothing.

It was the same nothing she’d been dealing with since she walked past that first guardian and his riddled warning. However, even that said something...as did the fact that the ‘nothing’ hadn’t existed in the practice room.

Now focused on the present, Whit peered around the corner to see it end not in a door, but an archway. The lintel was a little lighter, the blue missing entirely. If she were to guess, it was stone brought from somewhere else - or perhaps just brought in from outside. She’d seen stone that color while climbing through the mountain passes. It was almost unnoticed as her eyes kept moving. Beyond the stone - beyond were rays of light, cutting through dusty air.

The little particles drifting took up far too much of her attention; they were almost hypnotic after the stillness and emptiness. There was  _ light.  _ Real light, and more than the dim brightness that gave at least some shadow to her days. She didn’t realize she’d stepped past the threshold until she felt seams beneath her feet and closed her eyes in one of the rays.

Sunlight.

It  _ was  _ sunlight, even if the warmth was almost negligible.  _ Sunlight.  _ The taste of dust against her tongue, its dryness in her nose - it was almost too much. There were more scents than just dust, though. Something...something else dry.  _ Dried.  _ Whit opened her lips just enough to let taste back up scent - hints of leather snuck through the rest, and a sharp tang.

She snapped open her eyes.  _ Why  _ hadn’t it occurred to her…?  _ ‘Sight is what we rely on. Don’t. It’s the most fickle of senses, because it shows what you believe to be there.’ _

She’d been forced to rely on sight for so long, too long. But believe? She couldn’t believe what she saw. Books.  _ Windows  _ high up, beams of light staining the floor and shelves made of the same ancient hardwood as the doors.

Before she lost all sense, Whit carved the same narrow trail sign into the bookcase next to her. She glanced back; for now, the passage still existed beyond the lintel. Then, assured of a path that should lead back to her things, she moved forward.

There were books everywhere. The shelves were dark and heavy, but the books didn’t look as aged. Scrolls were tucked into crosshatched nooks, while loose sheets were stacked haphazardly in open spaces.

“What...is this place?”

She almost expected an answer. There was none to be had.

Her unsheathed knife was out of place here, but there was nowhere to put it. Ignoring the various scattered objects, she turned her attention first to the room itself. Whatever else,  _ that  _ mattered. The ceiling towered nearly twenty feet over her head, the arches of the place as pale as the lintel against the darker blue-veined granite. The floor, here, was also the lighter stone.  _ That  _ on its own was different enough to note. Despite the light and dancing motes, there was no breeze that she could feel - and no sound of anyone but herself. Her voice had rung faintly before vanishing into the space. Everything existed here.

Whit shook her head, then let herself look at the shelf. The books had no writing on the spines - the first she pulled carefully from its spot left with a faint rasp against its fellows.

There was a symbol on the front she didn’t recognize, somewhat triangular, but with a swirl through the center. Opening it provided no clues; whatever was contained within was in a script she couldn’t follow. The pages were stained slightly with age, but they still moved easily.

Magic, but this was a familiar sort. The Blades used the same spells to preserve the knowledge they’d saved - or at least something similar.

A book on the next shelf was in a different script, but it was still indecipherable to her. Frustrated, she moved on. The books in the rooms she’d been trapped in had been in good, clear Tevene, with the exception of the one in a variant of the Almarri she knew, though it still used Tevene lettering. Why would it be different now? Was it just to taunt her?

At the fifth, she snarled.

“Why? Why have all of this, why have it open, and have it useless? What test is this?” Instead of exploring further, she stalked back to the archway. Frustration made her pull two slim books from the shelf on her left as she verified the trailsign was there. She shook the wisps of hair from her eyes, vowing silently to cut it once she got back to ‘her’ space - and her things. Then she stepped back through and made her way toward where she  _ hoped  _ she could still get to it.

This time, she counted her strides. The four to the corner, and then the longer corridor. She couldn’t see the end - it must have some sort of curve to it too subtle for her body to sense, but there was only stone before her eyes. Thirty, then forty strides passed with no sign of the door - or any other offshoot. The passages since the guardian had taught her what she sensed mattered little, but it was all she had. 

The odd tingles through her feet were new - or perhaps she just hadn’t noticed them in her flight from her own reflection. When Whit considered the question with the part of her attention not occupied by simple numbers and blue-veined grey, she realized the stunning difference. Before, she was always booted.

Whatever this place was, it was  _ uncomfortable.  _ Odd tastes darted across her tongue, then vanished a few paces later. Cool water ran down her spine and drove goosebumps across her skin, but she wasn’t wet. She rubbed at her forehead with the back of one hand, keeping her dagger forward.

“Well,” she murmured, “that’s a lesson. Boots.”

Boots and clothes.  _ Why  _ had she been so impetuous? It wasn’t like her. She knew better.

After fifty-three paces, a door hung before her. She looked; there was a trail sign where she’d left one. That was probably good. It was  _ certainly  _ better than the alternative. Stuffing the books under her arm, she reached out to the door - and hesitated.

She stared at it, then glanced down at her hand - but doing so let her also get a glimpse of bare toes...which reminded her of the rest. A Blade was never naked, not unless in the sight of the Maker Himself.  _ ‘We wear pants to have pockets and protection from rocks, shirts to protect against the sun or rain. Boots guard our feet and make sure we can walk the path set before us. A Blade has its sheath, and so do we.’ _

It made sense, for the lives the Blades and their brother Disciples led. Both the rocky coast she called home and the mountains here where the Disciples made their home demanded compromise, because they offered none. Neither were known for gentleness - but a gentle whetstone didn’t hone an edge.  _ ‘We are the blade, not the hand that wields it.’ _

They doubted, but they obeyed. What now, when she had nothing but doubt? There was nothing to be obedient to!

Whit swallowed, looking back at the grain of the door. What would a spirit care for the physical?

Ah, but he claimed the name Maferath...and he’d said he was proud. Would that change?

If she could have fisted a hand, she would have. If she dared to curl up in a ball, she would already be on the floor. Neither were options, and the tingles up her insoles made her shift. She needed boots.  _ Her  _ boots. They were inside. It didn’t matter if…

_ ‘Be honest, Whit.’ _

“It would matter if he changed.” The words freed her, despite her fears. It would matter. She had nothing else, no one else for companionship, and she’d impressed him enough to be recognized. Yet earlier her anger was enough to drive her to dare him to prove her wrong, to dare him to tell her she was lesser just because of her body.

She didn’t know Maferath’s legend well enough to know if the man would have, and that might have only a little to do with the bound soul guarding the Temple’s secrets for centuries.

In either case, standing here wasn’t an option. She needed her things at the very least.

When the door opened, it seemed nothing had changed. The bucket was still in the room, her boots and pants near it. Her shirt? Oh, she’d thrown it at the wall. Her axes were discarded on the ground not far from where she’d felled the spirit.

Whit crept back in, and hated herself.  _ Nothing  _ had changed! Nothing - she was the same person who’d managed to succeed, the same person who had trained for...a long time, who had asked questions that Maferath had finally answered. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Deep within Stone’s deepest darkness, light surprises, sky alight.** **  
Clouds eternal stone encircled, ever living water bright.  
Memories of other dreaming, seeks out dreamers once again  
To speak through mouths, to breathe through lungs, know the sky is at an end.  
Maker, your creation shivers, shiver I to bathe within  
The Wellspring of your deepest dreaming, green waters free from sin  
Drink deeply, my song aright  
Remembers what was once rent  
Who will see what is hidden?  
Maker, I thank you, secrets hide.**

**

The room stayed empty.

She couldn’t decide if that was that better or worse. In either case, Maferath didn’t appear, and she didn’t try to summon him. He came and went as he pleased. At first, she hadn’t wanted to see him, and had disliked how he’d always be there when she woke. Later, it had become a comfort: a routine of sorts.

Now, she ignored the bucket and dropped the knife and books to collect her clothes and take them into her simple room. There were a few more things in it now, but not many. At least she had another set of threadbare clothes. Threadbare?

They’d been nearly new when she’d claimed them in the Blightlands. Sturdy and well-constructed, they shouldn’t be threadbare. She hadn’t done much since coming to this place!

Surely she hadn’t…

Perhaps they were merely less well-made than she’d thought. Whit tried to believe that, even if she doubted. “I always doubt,” she said, but the humor was more stale than when Cameron said it to her. It was a joking accusation from him, a calm similarity from Gidgit. From Pollen, it had been almost a measure of approval.

Doubt was the life of a Blade. Doubt was healthy, was  _ needed,  _ so long as you could do what must be done.

That was another thought she didn’t want to have right now, so she went back into the practice room to collect her sweaty clothes from the morning, putting them in the small washroom. Then the bucket, then the books and her weapons.

How long since she’d checked the blades of her axes? She couldn’t remember, so she pulled out oil and whetstone. She didn’t want to think on the mysteries - or the doubts buried beneath them. 

Unfortunately, her mind roamed past the familiar task. There was a  _ library  _ here. While the Blades didn’t have one, they were described in some of Trefir’s writing, and certainly in that of the Blades who left and returned with knowledge of what the Chantry had done lately, what it sought to learn...who it sought to kill for believing differently.

The long rasp of the whetstone across the curved blade was its own music. “Why a library? Where did it come from?”

She couldn’t remember Trefir’s writings mentioning that they had many books with them. The Almarri had brought none, or nearly none, their legends and knowledge kept living in the mind. It was  _ Tevinter  _ that caged knowledge, Tevinter from whom Trefir claimed the desire and the ability to write down everything he could learn of Andraste’s Chant from her closest disciples: the ones who became Disciples here.

None of that implied they had the quantity of books she’d seen, and there was more space than she’d explored.

“How many? Where did they come from?”

The ability to create books wasn’t common. It required special techniques, time, reagents, acid, and enough industry to make both cloth and whatever parts of wood went into paper. The bindings were their own mystery, as were the glues. How could the Disciples have managed all of that while remaining hidden? Or, the uncomfortable thought bubbled up, had they scavenged from the corpses of the cities Andraste’s army had claimed?

Some of what she’d read had been  _ journals.  _ It was a clear rendition of the work here and in the town they named their Haven. That means they either brought blank ones, bought them, or stole them, didn’t it?

Journals.

She looked again at the two books she’d brought back from the library, now that she was again clad enough for comfort. They’d stayed clear of the water, and were just as preserved as the others. That much was good.

Before she opened them, she took the time to look at them. In the flat light of her room rather than the dust-and-beam filled library, they were...rather ordinary seeming. While the journals she’d read were bound in a greenish leather, the first had a red undertone to the leather, and the other was a greyish-black. Neither had anything on the front...no, wait.

When Whit shifted the greyish-black, there was - nothing on it. So much for that faint hope. She set it aside and looked into the red. It didn’t take more than a couple pages to make her sigh.

More indecipherable script.

It  _ was  _ in letters she recognized, but when she tried to sound them out, it was as meaningless as a goat. Moreso - at least with the goats and rams of the Coast, you could tell if they sensed danger, or were trying to collect their kids, or any number of things. This was nothing to her.

Her first instinct was to throw it.

_ ‘Don’t act on instinct! Act on thought and questions! Instinct will get you killed as easily as the fennec caught in a snare.’  _

“Good advice,” she murmured, and set it on the shelf before looking at the other. This one was equally indecipherable, though at least there were diagrams and pictures within. Flipping through them, Whit recognized nothing.

She sighed.

Well, this made seven or eight books. There were plenty more. When she looked into the practice room, the light was dimming. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her what she’d forgotten earlier.

She ate, then laid down to sleep.

For the first time in...a long time, her dreams were uneasy. Flickers of sensation bounced through them, along with deformed faces pressed against something. Limbs with strange joints, spines that twisted where they shouldn’t, a mouth turned upside-down...they were wrong in ways obvious and subtle.

She tasted color.

She smelled laughter.

Whit snapped upright, her cocoon of blankets still wrapped around her shoulders. She took a deep breath of the empty air, the room looking just as it always did in the changeless light.

“Dreams. Just dreams.” 

That’s all they were, but there was something about them that tickled her mind. Whatever the bit of lore was, it stayed outside her reach. She fought herself free, had a drink of water, and then laid back down. They were only dreams, and there was nothing she could do about them. Now that she was awake, she could feel the soreness from the previous day’s training. Better to worry about things in a true morning - the drag of her thoughts told her she’d only been asleep for a couple hours.

Uneasy thoughts and sore muscles had never been enough to keep her awake, not when she often faced much worse than that. 

When Daddy was mad, she’d sometimes taste blood from biting back a cry of pain or, worse, tears. Those nights, or the ones where a cracked bone ached, were the ones where she’d creep out of bed after her straining ears caught Daddy’s snores and make her way to the corner of their main room. Char and Coal, the huge mabari Daddy had raised from puppies, would make space. Curled up against their warmth and animal musk, she’d distract herself from the pain.

She rolled over. Why was she thinking those things? They didn’t matter, not here.

What was happening back home? Daddy had been getting...impatient. There was uneasiness in the air the last year or so, from more than just her.

_ We are the blade, not the hand that wields it. _

No, it was longer than the past year. She remembered the first Challenge called by the smith’s wife. She was a solid hunter, but hunting bears was different than hunting men. Andraste smiled on Daddy, and she fell broken in the dirt. That was two years ago. It hadn’t been the last.

It also hadn’t been the first. Challenge was part of the Blades. Any Blade could Challenge the First Blade and prove themselves. How many had there been?

How much blood was in the soil of their home? How much since they’d moved and begun building it, almost seven generations ago? Since they left behind the Frostbacks and lost contact with the Disciples…

Whit didn’t know. At least, she consoled herself, she  _ knew  _ she didn’t know - though this time, she wasn’t sure if these questions had answers she’d want to hear.

**

_ “What’s your weapon?” _

_ He looked at old Pollen, just like the others. “What do you mean?” _

_ The scarred man stroked his bow, even here inside the fortress. The long, curved dagger hung ignored on his hip - it was more useful for skinning than for a strike, Whit’s mother had told him with a smile. _

_ “You’re all ten. What’s your weapon? It says more about you than you know, but it’s knowledge you and your fellow Blades will need. You are your weapon.” _

_ How long had it taken before he’d looked over at Cameron? The other boy just shrugged and went for the sword. He grunted when he picked it up, but they’d all been doing drills since they could walk, of course. Well, it had taken Tevin a bit longer, but that’s because he had the Green Fever, and it took a while before the healer had gotten his legs to straighten out again. _

_ “Boys! Don’t look at each other! You either, girls! This you must do yourself.” _

_ Gidgit went for a roll of thin knives. Tevin, the bow half-sized compared to Pollen’s. _

_ Whit knew his father, and his father’s great hammer. He’d tried to pick it up - and there was one, sized for someone a few years older. He chewed his lip as he swayed back and forth. No. He needed something he could use now. Swords were too common, bows were good enough when you were hunting… _

_ He walked over to the rack, already picked over like the carcasses he and his mother ran across down by the falls sometimes. But on the bottom… _

_ “Axes? Well, lad, you’d better be ready to work.” _

_ “I am!” _

_ Old Pollen shook his head with a smile. “You don’t know what work  _ is, _ lad. You’ll find out.” _

**

Waking in the morning was only a mild ordeal, made worse by her hand. It was as though the left one had brushed against nettles - random bits of unexpected pain caught her off guard. Distracted by that, Whit rolled out of her bed, grabbed her axes by long habit, and wrapped the belt around her hips. Hips - never waist, never anything that could reveal the truth. The axes weighed it down enough.

What did it matter?

Eventually she’d understood why Pollen asked the question the way he did. Blades chose their weapons as much as their weapons chose them. The shaping went both ways, flesh and steel.

A sword was clean and direct, ready for any martial task - but was for use against people.

The bow was one for range and stealth. The hunter’s weapon, it didn’t care the flesh it was aimed at so long as time was taken to keep the aim true. You needed many arrows in a quiver, though.

The hammers and greatswords? If you had strength, they could be mastered. However, they were ponderous and easy to see. They were the tools of confidence and certainty, as inevitable as the tides and moonrise.

Daggers and knives were for detail work. The unexpected assailant needed something that could be used to cut only the flesh that must be excised.

Maces? Clubs? A wolverine used whatever it had at hand to defend its den, and it was prized for its determination and steadfastness.

The staff was a tool for those who wandered and needed to look unassuming. They were explorers, gatherers - but a staff is always at hand should something unexpected occur, and then can go back to poking at the crags.

Axes were tricky. They weren’t a tool or weapon, even among the basic weapons and their other uses. You needed balance and strength. They cut timber as easily as flesh, if you had the determination to use them and care for them.

It wasn’t til Olem laughed and tapped his fist against his chest, to Daddy’s loud approval, that she’d realized. Axes were the weapon no one expected.

Whit shook her head.

“Oh, Pollen,” she sighed. “Is it truth, or too much imagination?” She’d  _ wanted  _ to matter to Daddy so much, wanted to prove herself in her own way.

_ ‘If it’s true, what does it matter? We’re all Blades, and we’re Andraste’s. She’s got the need for many tools, lad.’ _

Whit reached up and brushed her crest. “There is that.”

Shaking her head, she put a bar into her pocket and stuffed her feet into her boots. It wasn’t until she had already stepped through the door into the training room that yesterday finished catching up to her, along with her new fears.

Would he be there?

“Prepare yourself.”

Whit swallowed against some inconvenient knot in her throat and nodded. Her left hand kept tingling - that was something to keep in mind, as was the slight delay from her right shoulder. 

There was no victory today. Her left axe fell to the ground after catching the slightest of blows, and even the whipcord speed she’d begun to develop wasn’t enough when the ground felt like it shifted under her.

“You are less capable today.”

She wouldn’t cry.

_ ‘Tears? More weakness?’ _

They wouldn’t help.

“I am,” she whispered.  _ Please, just leave me alone in my shame… _

Maferath didn’t hear - or didn’t heed - her private plea. “Why?”

Why? He asked  _ why?  _ “Because I am…”

“You are nothing today you were not yesterday.” The dispassionate response caught her off guard. “Why?”

She was nothing today…

No, she was nothing today that she wasn’t yesterday.  _ She  _ hadn’t changed overnight, or after stripping. He hadn’t thrown his hammer with any more or any less speed; she’d just failed. What had changed?

“I found the library.”

Did he know? “Does that make you less capable in the art of war?”

Whit shook her head from where she lay on the ground.

“Then why?”

Why? There was something? He would not be satisfied with an excuse any more than Pollen or Daddy ever had been. Therefore, she had missed something important.

What was different?

Her tingling hand. The way the ground shifted...under her feet.  _ Boots.  _ It wasn’t her boots. She’d touched the stone with her bare feet, just like she’d touched the walls with her hand. The books - perhaps there was a spell. “I touched...the walls, the floor, the books in the library.” 

Silence.

_ ‘You have a head for a reason, Whit! Andraste gave you a mind and Trefir expects you to use it! If you don’t think, you can’t doubt - you’re nothing but another beast.’ _

She knew how to observe. Something had been different. The memory of when she brushed against the wall - “The walls,” she said. “The floor. I’d not touched either with skin before.”

She opened her eyes to look at the stone her cheek lay against. It was nearly the same shade as the corridor, but solid grey.

“The blue.”

Maferath made a faint sound. “Lyrium is not for the likes of a warrior.”

Lyrium...she recognized the word. There had been something in the Chant about lyrium - lyrium, blood and the Magisters. The Old Gods that had promised, the Old Gods that had gone silent. Whatever it was, it was blue, rock, and unpleasant. How rock was used was something she didn’t understand, but she wasn’t a mage. Had she heard of the stuff anywhere else? Magic rock?

“Why would the Disciples build here, if it has seeds of the Magisters’ sin?”

“Because it is not the tool, but the wielder.” His voice startled her; she hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “Lyrium is a tool that can be used by any hand for good or ill; it gives strength to the magic, or so I was told. The work was hard, but we prayed. The choices were hard, but we were vigilant and faithful. The most faithful, or the ones with the most to repent - we chose to exist forever from the Maker’s side, forever living in an endless present, remembering our past.”

There was nothing she could think of to say, not with the heavy voice and untold weight behind each word. 

“Again. Sweat will help.”

The only aches were from yesterday, and then the sharp irritants in hand and feet. Sweat would help? She had plenty of sweat to give. Whit checked her fallen axe, then wiped her hands and stood at the ready.

Maferath’s face lightened. “Good.”

They worked again, and again, and again. Only when her blade was nicked did she call for a panting stop - and that was for its sake, not hers.

He understood the need to care for a blade.

Once she cleaned up, she realized how true his words were. There was still a tingle and an uneasy sense of imbalance, but it was much less than it had been this morning. It  _ wasn’t  _ just the dreams. It was something physical.

That made her feel easier. Still, she looked at the books she’d taken from the library, and decided to bring them back.

The Disciples had many peoples among them, but were Almarri at the core...and most others were from the Imperium. Surely most of the books would be in Tevene, or the Almarri she’d also grown up reading. That alphabet had to have been shared between Disciples and Blades.

This time, she came as a simple person, worn boots and frayed cloth. Fifty-three paces, and the corner. It may be magic, but there was consistency - at least for now. Whit swallowed the last of her lunch before stepping through.

The Blades had little they wrote down, but the written word was still...valued. She would not risk getting crumbs onto the books here.

“So, explore the shelves, or explore the room?”

Olem grinned daringly at her; she blinked and he vanished again from sight.

Both had value. The room was perhaps thirty paces on a side if she were to guess, with an unknown number of books and various other things. How odd, that the Almarri became the ones who collected writing, and the Blades held history sacred, but preferred living memory for what didn’t need to be rigorously guarded. The Almarri and Tevene, changing places?

_ ‘Andraste has changed many things. Not just faith - by providing renewal as the Imperium realized its Old Gods had become nightmares - but a shaking of the foundations of invincibility. What changes will follow from the shifts in our hearts, the shifts in what we know to be true?’  _ That memory brought up another question. “How much, I wonder, did we change each other?”

She knew that there had been some - Almarri was spoken by the Blades as easily as Tevene, if not moreso; it was better understood in the rough areas they lived.

How deeply had they gone?

How much had the Blades and Disciples relied on each other - the watcher and the actor - to both remember their purpose?

Her feet had carried her further into the room as she thought; she would explore that today, then. Whit retraced her steps long enough to put both books back where they had been, the thin ridge of dust showing where their spines belonged. There was less than she would have expected…

Turning to her right, she followed along the shelves, looking. Books. Scrolls. Small boxes; when she opened one, it had little glass stones. A shallow dish with copper coin no longer needed, a metalwork contraption that, despite its dust, had not tarnished.

She didn’t see any doors, not even when she was faced with another wall of shelves. Turning to her left, there was a map tacked against the wall of two shelves back-to-back.

_ A map? _

Yes, it was one, if something very different than she knew. She traced the lines of it, awed. They were so fine, the colors as fresh as if it were made yesterday.

It was the Imperium, though she only knew that from the lettering. Minrauthus, Bryantum, Rhoti…those and others, she’d seen only as names on parchment.

Someone had brought this map with them when they started the journey to the south.

_ Was it battle-spoil or perhaps loot?  _ It was a piece of the past, of how the Archon and Magisters saw their world, with everything centered from Minrauthus. 

“Some truths are only of a moment.” Whatever it had been no longer mattered. It was here, the ones who knew the provenance were long gone. There was still value in understanding the history, though. Or so Gidgit would have said.

It was why they questioned. They were the tool, the First Blade the one who wielded them - but Trefir wanted Blades to be tools that could think. Tools that could believe. Thus could they do Andraste’s bidding.

She turned her attention away from the map and started following the outer edge of the library again. A shadowed nook held a bust of some sort - Whit saw the leaf-ears of an elf, but didn’t recognize the face. More books, shelves covered in figurines and rusted weaponry, a few potion bottles that seemed to still hold liquid caught her gaze, and then were passed. 

There was a door tucked further along the wall in its own nook, but she didn’t try it. This alone was enough newness for her. Instead, she combed her hair back again with her fingers and kept walking. Where there was an Almarri life-rope, she couldn’t resist and pulled a book from the shelf. 

“Just one,” she murmured into the dusty space. The rays of light didn’t answer, despite their faint memory of warmth. Just one - for today. By the time she made it back to her door, the trail sign comforting her, she was ready to head back. She still had to get that nick out of her axe - and had another book to consider.

It had been a while since she’d seen any spirit but Maferath. The thought broke through her musing. “I wonder why that is?”

There was so much to wonder here.

So much didn’t make sense.

She shook her head and went back through the muffled corridor, the faint scuffing of her boots vanishing until she reached the practice room. 

What was this place, and why?


	13. Chapter 13

**Maker, I hear you in every bird’s cry, the gods as they laugh and battle the sky  
Your City, Throne calls your name - please cleanse what Magisters defiled  
Warriors and poets, augur and slave, we all call out your name  
Blood spilled on black lands for your honor, not blood magic-born chain  
Soul-weary at such death-cries, I beg you, ease heart-wound and fear  
Your glory your creation, return the sun’s brilliance, rain’s tears.  
I stand lonely, faith beside  
Heart’s-blessing calls for the same  
Maker, they need me - be near  
I beg thee as thy heart-sworn bride.**

**

Going into the library became an afternoon occurrence, especially after the lucky find of the Almarri book. It was written in the alphabet she knew, a collection of the tribes and their hold-beasts who had united with Andraste. 

_ ‘Gods are a curious idea. The gods we know are made by our presence as much as our dreams are shaped by them. Yet that there is a Maker above all - yes. The oldest of the gods, when asked, say the Veil did not always exist. No more answers can we interpret.’ _

_ ‘It is not a question they like.’ _

The strong hand was angular and carefully formed; this was someone who had knowledge in who they were, if not great practice with writing. Gods? The rest made it clear - “Spirits. This person is talking about spirits.”

It made sense - the Maker’s first children would remember before the Veil allowed the physical to exist, stable against the changing of the Fade. Yet to see such views…

“Does that mean the Old Gods existed? They were real? Dumat, Zazikale, Urthemiel, Lucasan…”

_ “The Old Gods,”  _ a woman’s hollow voice broke in to join her,  _ “had answered prayers. Though they had not been seen, their forms were known. As old as the others of the Maker’s children, but part of the physical grown wise with time. Thus it is said.” _

Whit swallowed, nervous despite recognizing her. “What else?”

Her voice was tempered with the cadence of well-worn history.  _ “What else is there to say? Of the world, as the Maker’s first children were not - as the Maker’s second were. But they were here first. Perhaps that is why dragons have always called to men - or why men have been drawn to them. We are from the Maker’s hand, but we are made of this place. It is always our choice to listen to our blood or the whispers in our souls. Will we do what is natural to us, or glory in the will of the divine?” _

She spoke of something she could see, even if Whit could not. Yet it somehow harmonized with Trefir’s stories and what she’d grown up believing the Blades were supposed to be; the balance between obedience and doubt, the need to question...hope of a future that matched Andraste’s vision against the harsh reality of the present.

It was yet another thing to ponder in her afternoons and evenings, her mornings still given to the blade.

_ ‘Survival first - only with that can you question. Only when you truly live can you believe.’ _

They were simple words, but that made them no less true.

The next day, she returned to the library.

**

When she asked questions, so long as she did in Tevene, the woman would answer. The answers didn’t always relate to the questions - at least, not in any way Whit could follow - but it was interesting. 

_ Doubt.  _ Sometimes it was hard to remember, but she tried. She didn’t know this place, she didn’t know the ghostly figure beyond her now-familiar form - not her name or even what she was. Unlike Maferath, that was one question she simply ignored.  _ ‘Question everything, but especially question that which makes sense. Life is complicated, but we like answers to be simple.’ _

As she found more books, each told a different story. She sifted between them, working the seeds of commonality out of the different tales - yet there was another, harder task. What was  _ different?  _ Why? Just because something was commonly understood did not make it true.

It was commonly understood that the Chant had not changed by those of the Chantry. Whit knew otherwise: the Blades recorded the changes.

It was commonly understood that magic was dangerous, but that did not make the mage evil.

_ It was commonly understood that might and cunning determined who could wield the Blades… _

She turned from  _ that  _ thought, seeking solace against the pells when the handful of books she could read did not hold her attention. The Sword of Mercy. She was Whit, a Blade of Hessarian, and she had come for the Sword.

When her hair fell into her eyes and past her ears, she used her thin knife and cut it again.

When her breeches began to wear too far, she looked back into the practice room to see if there was leather soft enough to create a new pair.

When she found a book written by a Blade, she stared at it in shock.

It was slim, and she didn’t know for  _ certain,  _ but she knew as her fingers traced the faint indentations on the cover. In this light, there were shadows. In the shadows, she saw the Crest. The Crest of Mercy. It would only be on the work of a Blade, surely. Who else would know it?

Whit carefully set it to one side and started checking all the other books on the shelf. This couldn’t be it. No, there would be more. There had to be.

No other books had the Crest where she could see or feel it, but there were three others that were written in a tongue she could read. All of these she clutched to her chest as her eyes ran along the various things piled against the books: an old knife, too small for anything but whittling or sharpening a quill; a tangle of pearl strands; a little saucer of long-fallen pine cones; and some kind of folded fabric sat, uncommunicative. 

Nothing else looked like it was theirs. She hadn’t been mistaken. The Crest might be recognized by the spirits that were part of this place, but the Disciples did not use it.

She almost moved it all to unfold the cloth, but the shimmering yellow cloth was a luxurious thing. Soft. Valueless. Instead, she pulled her own knife and made a tiny trail sign on the edge of the shelf that had held the treasures she clutched. She had to be certain she could find this one again.

Then, she headed back to her room. While the dusty light made it easier to see what lay on the covers, she’d been here later than usual and it was fading. Better to take them back where the light was constant, if false.

The Crest.

_ Answers,  _ her heart beat at her with every step. Answers. The book would hold answers.

It was made. It was made with the Crest of Mercy pressed into the leather. What could that mean, but that the Disciples or Blades had bookmaking? Both were too wary otherwise. They had been hunted from the start - hunted for hope or revenge, but it didn’t matter which.

The passage that she now saw as trapped with the blue lines woven through the stone passed almost unnoticed, her mental count flustered. Her feet still knew the way as she reached the door - not that there  _ were  _ other ways.

“So, Whit. You have found something?”

She froze, staring at Maferath.

He never appeared in the evening.

He’d never spoken of anything aught fighting or his own past; the way the Disciples accepted the penitent husband, his sorrow at his jealousy and relief that somehow, his actions were to become part of the Maker’s plan.

“I don’t know.”

It was a safe answer.

It also wasn’t an answer he accepted. “You think otherwise.”

Again, the faint question came back: was he spirit or soul? How much did the soul change when unbound by flesh and bound again by vows and magic?

Whit swallowed.

“I...maybe. I found - found something, but I don’t know what. It is of the Blades.” She tried to control her own wild hope. “It may be nothing but the history we also keep.”

_ May. _

Holding onto  _ may  _ was hard with the book in her hand. There had been fewer books in the library than she expected that she could read. A few were Almarri, but changed enough to make her doubt her translations. Others were in letters she knew, but spoke only gibberish. This one would be different.

This one had to be different.

The others were, but the one she hadn’t opened yet. The cover was already more than she could bear, with the inertia of unending days so strong.

“May your faith be strong.”

It was automatic. “May my doubt be pure.”

He watched her for a moment. “May it be pure. You will need that doubt, would-be Blade.”

The words were not comforting, even if there was no threat in his voice. She waited longer, but he said nothing else. Instead, he simply stood in the practice room, his hammer tied to his back.

Should she ask more questions?

Whit didn’t, the finality of his voice twisting desire against worry - and if she were honest, the fear that he might answer. Not all answers were pleasant. 

_ Tomorrow,  _ she promised herself. It had been a long day, and Maferath appeared every morning. There was time for questions. She didn’t have enough confidence to ask - and didn’t know enough to even guess at what she should ask.

Tomorrow.

She didn’t even open them. Instead, she put them next to the bed, ate, took off her boots and curled up under her blanket. They were the last things she saw as she closed her eyes. Tomorrow. She would learn  _ something  _ tomorrow.

Sleep was hard that night, but she was used to sleeping with doubts and questions flowing. It was fine to push yourself when you had to, but routine was also good. Routine was part of how she stayed sane here in this place with no real sun, no trees, and no people.

The questions distracted her mind. The spirits touched a void she tried not to look into.

_ I miss home. _

**

Tomorrow...came.

It didn’t bring answers, because she refused to look for them. Instead, she dressed, collected her axes, and went into the practice room.

What she wanted  _ also  _ didn’t happen.

Maferath wasn’t there.

“What?” Whit checked the light through the filmy windows - it was there, with that slim brightening she associated with ‘morning.’ The room was still furnished, the doors still present, but there was no man armored in fur and leather waiting to do battle.

Her spine twitched.

Something had happened. Something was different - wrong. But wasn’t that always the case? Wasn’t there always something this place had in mind for her, even if it would never tell?

“Why?” The cry tore from her throat. “Why is it always like this? How long do you plan to toy with me? How long? What do you  _ want?” _

She closed her eyes, but there was no answer or even echo in this muffled place. There was nothing. No one she could test herself against, no one to speak to, and the Maker didn’t answer prayers. Even Andraste, if the Bride acted, did so behind the Veil.

_ ‘There is no certainty - it is an illusion that blinds. No, there is some. That Andraste existed, that she was the true Bride - that. The glory of her Chant that drew the attention of an absent Maker - that cannot be denied. Then there is death, for we all die.’ _

She believed in the Bride, like all Blades. Andraste had existed. So had Maferath, Hessarian, Shartan - all of them. The Blades believed a few other certainties. They had their purpose, and that purpose was known to the First Blade, who acted in accordance with the mission from Andraste and Hessarian, through Trefir.  _ We are the blade, not the hand that wields it.  _ Did the First Blade believe something different?

Daddy did.

Whit swallowed, knowing she was wallowing in memory because there was nothing else to do or see. The one person she’d come to know here was gone. 

But she - she’d let others wield her. It was part of being a Blade. Her parents had shaped her; it hadn’t ended after Daddy became First Blade. Cameron, Olem...even Pollen was fit for another’s hand. They questioned, they observed - but they obeyed.

Nothing in the room answered when she called out. She could cry - wrapped around the hollow emptiness she’d always carried - though tears didn’t come. Whit tasted stubborn bitterness as she listened to the silence. It was the same little bit of contrariness that made her first pick up an axe - the same need to prove herself that made her keep trying over the past five years to learn to deal with her body and its needs by herself to protect Daddy’s pride and honor. More, she realized with another taste of ash, it was the same need for approval.

So Maferath wasn’t going to show? Fine. She considered trying to find her way out, but didn’t. It was part that she suspected this place and that which guarded it wouldn’t let her, and part that she’d come for Hessarian’s sword. It belonged to the Blades. She would recover it.

In either case, she started jogging around the practice room to warm up. Nothing changed? Fine. The pells were still there, and she still had her axes. She worked against it, then once her shoulders burned resheathed them and worked longer unarmed. Weapons were good, but the true weapon was the Blade, not the steel they carried. 

_ “A weapon can’t fight itself. You have to be the weapon first. Figure it out. You’ll fail before your steel will.” _

_ “I won’t, Pollen.” _

_ He snorted. “Prove me wrong, boy. I don’t eat my words often.” _

She’d pushed hard: harder than Cameron and the others, hard enough to catch up to Olem - and finally, to pass him. The blows and strikes kept flowing, faster as she worked back into her rhythm. Forearms and knuckles were used to the impact.  _ ‘They’ll harden. You can forge yourself. There’s a reason the smith and I are both respected, Whit. He forges metal, and I help you younglings forge yourselves. Try again.’ _

Not once did she mention it was easier for her to push because it was the only release she had for her pain and failure, her desperation.  _ If she was good enough, Daddy would forget...he would be proud, just like he had been before she’d failed him by not being his son. She’d  _ be  _ his son. _

Whit stopped, almost hanging onto the pells for stability. Air ran raggedly in and out of her lungs, the rasp a pain that helped distract from the bruises this place wouldn’t heal. It didn’t heal what she did to herself. She’d learned that lesson.

Lessons - he still hadn’t shown. Wouldn’t show. She swallowed rather than punch the pells again...or cry. There was only so much energy she had. At least there was food.

“So this is it? Fine.” She dropped her axes on the floor and went back to the room...and the books that had drawn the reaction from Maferath. After all, she thought dully, she had no choice but to obey.

All her other choices had been taken from her when she chose to enter beyond the Guardian.

_ ‘A slave can always choose death.’ _

No.

_ No,  _ something hot and firm said, coiled around her desperation. No, she would not choose that. She’d said she’d come back, and she would. Even if now she wasn’t sure if it was to prove Olem and the others right...or to prove Daddy wrong.

She wouldn’t be her mother.

Whit bit her lip and looked at the three books. The one with the Crest, and the other two. She knew…

She opened up the one with worn brown leather, written in ancient Tevene.

This place may have taken most choices, but she still had some. 

_ ‘Few pilgrims come. It is good. The only ones who can follow the breadcrumbs are those who can hear the Bride’s words in their hearts. They risk the challenges of secrecy, of the change of words to fit the living, of the mountains and their cold hearts, of the Gauntlet once we have confirmed their faith.’ _

_ ‘Our lives are lonely, but we have the connection we need to the world beyond. The Vigilant can do little without the aid of the Sword. We watch, we believe; they act.’ _

Her eyes widened. No - yes.  _ May my doubt be pure.  _ Maybe, then. She turned the page.

_ ‘It is they who guard our isolation, but it is also they who keep it from truly isolating. News and books, in exchange for healing those gravely wounded in Andraste’s service. The blade must be kept honed. The Vigilant must not forget why they hold watch. It is they who fight, but it is also they who leave the bread crumbs. It is all in the service of the Maker, of the Bride who promised His return.’ _

What?

It made no sense - was there a date?

There was, but it referenced something she didn’t know. The Blades had stayed with centuries, even if they acknowledged the number since Andraste’s death. They also knew, though didn’t use, the Ages of the Chantry. This was something else. What year?

Were there any references she could find?

She devoured each page, looking.

_ ‘The sickness did not come here. Andraste’s blessing protects us. Andraste, remember your faithful. We did not cause it; we fought against its corruption of the Maker’s creation. Some have abandoned hope, but we do not.’ _

_ ‘Our brothers fight it where they can. Too many have died. The sickness risks us all. Andraste, guide us. Open our eyes.’ _

Sickness?

Plague?

Andraste’s Ashes...they healed, if she remembered the story right. They’d healed Blades? They healed the faithful, supposedly, or was it that only the faithful could reach them?

The few words she’d heard near the Blightlands clashed against the words from her Chantry stay, but the pilgrims on the road believed. They believed what the Chantry had told them. The Blades knew the Chantry had changed truth.

But  _ this... _ this implied that part of what the Chantry taught was still true.

More, there was a bond, a partnership between Blades and Disciples, one closer than she’d thought possible. Why didn’t she know? Whit shook her head. She’d studied, but not like Gidgit. She had a memory, but not Cameron’s constant questions and easy doubt.

Hers wasn’t the doubt of a scholar chasing after what had happened and how, it wasn’t the wariness of a warrior born. No, hers had always been an uncomfortable kernel in her heart. The spiraling ropes of fear and uncertainty had come later. Yes, a Blade learned to question, but she’d never been one or the other.

If she’d been a son in truth…

If she’d been the daughter she was born…

_ If her life hadn’t been lies… _

Whit rolled her shoulders, putting her nose back into the book. Anything was better than that. Anything. Especially as that sick combination of doubt and failure had become almost foreign. She only noticed when it came rushing back.

When had this happened? What sickness? The answers weren’t clear, but it was  _ something.  _ This was about the Blades, but by a Disciple.

More, it said that the Blades regularly contacted the Disciples. They were closer than the Blades of today knew. Her earlier questions, easier questions, resurfaced. What had changed? How much of it was the danger of the Seekers, and how much was mistake?

Those questions were easier because there were no answers here. The Disciples would not know what happened to the Blades after they no longer spoke, any more than the Blades had known of the Disciples’ descent into heresy.

When her eyes blurred, she remembered she hadn’t had much breakfast - and no real idea how long she’d made her painstaking way through the pages after cleaning up. She’d forgotten lunch, too. Sitting on her bed, she hadn’t read straight. Each line traced by a finger, there had also been long stretches of thought and questions. Whit had dug deep into the bits of memory she had of the Blades’ own history, no matter her growing doubts, trying to make sense of the scattered bits of knowledge. It was work, but it was sedentary work. It did nothing to drain the coiled energy left from the lack of an outlet. She closed the journal, brushing its nondescript cover, the page marked by a scrap of carefully hoarded twine.

She could eat, but then any training would be challenged by a churning stomach. That, or she could skip the meal and endure. Neither were particularly pleasant, and could have been avoided if she’d only thought.

Why go back and train?

The strangled sound almost startled her. “Because it’s that or think,” she admitted to the room.

Whether she liked it or not, Whit knew a few things about herself. Half-formed, failed ‘son’ of the First Blade, but she had the same habits as many of her fellows.

“It’s easier and I can see the value of it. Besides, it’s what Daddy…” The other words were choked off.  _ It’s what Daddy would sometimes still smile at, even if he never said he was proud. Sometimes it was enough for him to forget for that moment. Sometimes, he’d stop being angry. _

He’d gotten so angry when she’d failed him, when she inadvertently revealed the lies her mother had told them both. The anger…

Whit closed her eyes, all thoughts of training forgotten. The anger. Maybe if she could bring back the Sword, it would change things. What Daddy was doing now was  _ wrong,  _ and it was because his anger and betrayal needed an outlet that didn’t matter. But it did. The older Blades had started murmuring even around their obedience. Challenge had been called, unheard of so soon after a new Blade had risen.

It  _ would  _ make a difference. What was here - recovering the Sword of Mercy - would change things. It would remind them of what they did it for. It would remind Daddy of the mercy he’d forgotten.

It had to.

Whit curled under the blankets, pulling them over her head to give the illusion of darkness. Back home, she’d done it for the illusion of solitude.

It didn’t count as a lie if she remembered it was only an illusion.

If there were spirits here, they could drink her despair and desperate, flickering hope. The waves of emotion were the only signs she let slip from her personal cocoon. She’d learned how to cry quietly long ago.

Tears were just another sign of weakness to Daddy, more evidence she wasn’t the son he’d prayed for.

Maybe tomorrow would be better.

_ Maybe,  _ a tiny voice murmured,  _ tomorrow wouldn’t come.  _ She throttled it. If there were no more tomorrows, then she’d have failed. She wasn’t ready to fail.

_ Not yet. _


	14. Chapter 14

**Sky darkened, sight blackened, misery’s fog circle faithful fires  
As death beckons, reprieve is offered, the sole cost golden spires  
Disciples surrounded, tribes falter, ‘gainst demon-driven greed  
In our fear then came allies - leaf-eared peoples, answered our need.  
Their gods lost but unabandoned, dreams shattered remnants held tight  
Alliance offered, proud-standing once-slaves ‘come warriors and fight.  
Thanks to spirits, guides inspired,  
Lesson learned longing take heed  
In darkness, find stars alight  
Seek hope within, its light outside. **

**

Whit opened her eyes to stifling darkness and the gritty eyes left from her tears. Her body ached, bruises tender against the blanket over her head.

It...was it all a dream? In the almost-dead air, she couldn’t smell fires or hear the mabari whining for their breakfast. Maybe she’d woken before them? There was no muted snore from Daddy’s room, but he didn’t always.

It had all felt...real, and yet not. She sniffed again, her nose still clogged from last night. Tears and the bruises of training - but her breath, when through her mouth, was clear and easy. That was unusual. Pollen was a harsh taskmaster, and Daddy even worse when he involved himself. It was the only way to get stronger, to get faster.

If it was early, she could get clean before anyone but the night watch was up. She dug out of the blankets, only to be confronted by diffused, ever-present light.

Muzzy memories built over years faded behind those from the night before. 

She wasn’t home.

Char and Coal wouldn’t look mournfully at her if all she had was jerky instead of a bloody hank of goat or bear.

There would be no easy jokes from Cameron or playful shove from Olem, no quiet words to the night watch heading to their beds as the cooks woke to make porridge for after morning drill. Here she didn’t get clean woodsmoke, sometimes pressed into choking clouds under the shed by the ever-present rains.

The book she’d started to read was still laying on the bed, its pages bent from being splayed open. Whit winced. She’d been taught better than that, she respected words. Even if she wasn’t sure they were true, writing was not an easy task and books were expensive.

She sniffed deeply, swallowing the mucus that globbed in the back of her throat, and scrubbed the grit from her sore eyes. Then she wiped her hands on her shirt and reached for the journal, carefully smoothing the pages. They straightened, but the creases were still testament to her carelessness.

Hiding a wince, she looked at the page it was open to.

_ ‘...the winter is harsh. Thank our brothers for their efforts, the last Blade had arrived before the blizzard. She brought the books, empty for us. Ink we can make, but we don’t have the ingredients for glue, or the wax for the binding threads. Some other books, as we acquire them, should help us stay aware of the world we’ve sacrificed for duty.’ _

_ ‘Pilgrims are more rare. The ‘Chantry’ is conducting another Exalted March, this one further north. A new enemy, they say, or perhaps it is the Imperium. They listened to our Lady’s Chant; how not when it filled the Archon’s heart? However, the Magisters would not abandon their power and who among those beaten into obedience would challenge them?’ _

_ ‘The faith of the South is more earnest, the word of the North more true. Who would have thought, as Andraste’s followers swelled like the storm, pregnant with life-giving fury?’ _

The beauty of the words caught her, the hand simple and flowing. A child of the Storm Coast, she’d reveled in just that sensation. There was nothing like being so small against the power of the Maker’s creation and letting it purify you as life dripped along your skin.

A few pages later, other words in another hand.

_ ‘There are problems. The Order of Fiery Promise is long gone, it is said. In this case, those who say it speak with hope turned to certainty, rather than knowledge. So long as the Chantry persists, the Chant twisted to fit current understanding rather than a challenge to that understanding, it will fail to give comfort to all who hear it. We know the pain of longing for what we can never see. Pilgrims only bring so much hope. Our brothers, only so much comfort.’ _

_ ‘Most are satisfied here, seeking meaning in the shifting winds, the pattern of the hawk’s flight, the signs and murmurs of the gods around us. We are of these mountains, and the gods know us. But the gods are not enough. The Ashes...our purpose.’ _

_ ‘I pray it remains enough. Andraste, hear me.’ _

Purpose.

She had a purpose. Practicality and her own paralyzing doubt shook her. What did she have? She had pride and fear. That was not purpose, other than a purpose she created to justify her foolish youth. Now she understood why the Blades did not leave their sheath until a few years past adulthood. That move wasn’t just proving daring or endurance, but a move into the most dangerous point in their lives.

_ “You’re strong, right? Fast? Full of energy? So are the animals we live on, the ones in their first winter. They, too, have energy - but no sense.” The five of them didn’t chuckle, but she could see Cameron’s grin. It was quickly smothered as the Loremaster glared at him. She was not as forgiving as Pollen. _

_ There was a message she was trying to teach. _

_ “We one did. Most of the Blades lost to the Chantry were those in their first years. They had skill but not the ability to apply it. They were first-year prey. Our duty is hard enough. Once you’ve proven wisdom, you can seek to be wetted under the First Blade’s orders. Until then, you stay here.” _

She hadn’t.

It was more desperation than pride, but she’d been first-year stupid to think she could cross Ferelden, find Hessarian’s Blade, and return as though it was no more than a long hunt. Her tattoo had only stopped hurting; she wasn’t ready. Only her position as the First Blade’s son had kept Pollen or the others from arguing. After Daddy acknowledged her and turned his back, they couldn’t disobey without risking their own punishment.

So she left.

“Why was I so stupid?”

The empty room had as many answers as her memories. No one had said a word other than about what supplies she should take. A handclasp. A brief hug. A smile. A sack of rations.

They’d believed, or they’d thought her hopeless.

Whit dug for the energy to climb out of the bed, but it didn’t come. She read a few more pages, but there were no insights. What was knowledge without purpose?

What was she supposed to find?

It was the desperation and frustration that pushed her out eventually. Chewing on one of her last dried twigs to clean scum from her teeth, she poured a cup of water and stuffed her toes in her boots. Then she made her way back into the practice room.

Maferath was still gone? Well, she’d expected no different.

The light was more bright than she’d thought it would be - she’d hidden in the comfort of dreams too long. Stretching, she started to jog. Maferath or not, she wouldn’t give up her training. Whether  _ he  _ liked it or not, she was a Blade.

**

That set the routine. Training on her own was still better in the practice room, with food mysteriously available, than it had been in the short corridor before. For one, she wasn’t starving. For another, there was more she could do. Sometimes, it was enough to distract her from the yawning emptiness.

She wasn’t ready to read the slim volume. Instead, she went back to the library, again and again. Each shelf was examined, every book opened and flipped through.

She accumulated a small collection of her own, the one shelf almost stuffed completely.

In the afternoons, she read. The journals - there were more here.

_ ‘This winter is harder. Andraste, guard us. The wolves are close. No. We are Disciples, and have not forgotten the ways of the sword and bow. This, we will guard ourselves.’ _

_ … _

_ ‘More books; our brothers in the Blades managed to find a copy of the Chant as sung now. It is different. ‘Twas not the greed of the Magisters, it was the  _ need  _ of them. They were desperate. They had lost their gods, the whispers in the soul. Maker grant that the Chant suffices and fills us with light. Other changes…Shartan is lost, the People are lost. We mourn the hatreds sprung anew that stomped out the tender shoots of understanding.’ _

_ … _

_ ‘The First Blade is tired, and came with a second. What can be done? She speaks of war. Again. Someone was seen; the Seekers who lost sight of the questions will come, she says.’ _

“She?”

Whit blinked at the page, and checked again. Yes, that was female - in Almarri, there was no mistaking gender.  _ She.  _ A First Blade was female? Another Exalted March…

_ ‘Perhaps that is why this is the ‘Exalted Age’ to those beyond the Temple walls. Some pilgrims still come; most stay. We mourn the loss of faith. It is easier to know than to quest. Is it easier to guard the past than seek a future? We don’t know. It is our job to hold, it is that of the Blades to act. We remember. We guard. We trust that those who come do so with the knowledge of the Blades.’ _

The Disciples and Blades...they worked in partnership for centuries. They hadn’t been just brothers in memory, but in action. “Why don’t we know this?”

That question only led to more. Had she forgotten? Had it been hidden - or lost?

…

_ ‘The First Blade has passed. Illness from the winter took hold, and she refused to seek the blessing of Andraste’s ashes. ‘It is for the faithful,’ she said. ‘I am only the tool of Her hand.’ We mourn, and our Revered Fathers sent her ashes to follow the Bride. Andraste, show her the way to your side; she has served you well.’ _

_ … _

_ ‘The second refuses to take up the sword. It was not his to wield, he said. He asked us to keep it in fastness for the Blade who is meant to take it up.’ _

_ ‘After everything done for us, how can we say but yes?’ _

_ … _

She stopped reading for a time.  _ May my doubt be pure.  _ Oh, she doubted, but she didn’t know what to doubt. This place was the resting spot of Andraste’s Ashes, home of the Disciples.

Hessarian’s Blade was left here in the Exalted Age, but she didn’t remember word of a female First Blade and her second who returned alone. Instead of continuing, she went back to the practice space. There  _ had  _ to be an answer, surely? They had kept the knowledge! They remembered!

When her hair fell into her eyes, Whit tossed it back again. It was an annoyance, but little more than that. Instead of trying to read more, she took the time for another evening workout as the light faded. She’d needed those more often of late. Morning drill, no matter how she tried, didn’t seem to be as effective on her own. Pushing herself, she still didn’t think she was as fast, or as precise, or as strong. 

Her hair fell in her face again, but she didn’t want to waste the time to cut it. Instead, she rummaged on the shelf. When she found a thin strip of leather, she tried tying it around her head. It held even through a shaking, and while she could see her hair, it didn’t obscure her vision.

Good enough.

**

The days passed in solitude only broken by the rasp of her breathing and the discoveries in the library. Maferath’s words were replaced by those of Disciples long-dead,now gone to the Maker’s side. Some were ones she ignored; the daily life of the Disciples was differently harsh than she knew, but the Disciples were gone now save for the spirits.

No, it was the bits of belief, the Chant, and the ties between them and the Blades that drew her attention. The Blades had once lived in the Frostbacks along with the Almarri who’d returned to their tribes and the Disciples. They had passed freely among both, by the casual appearances of little tidbits of information. The Almarri gradually moved to further isolation, but the Blades and Disciples did not.

The  _ Blades  _ had brought the books.  _ We had once made books?  _ What had they been, once? They had shared festivals and feasts, carefully sent pilgrims who would be silent about what they had seen when they returned to the outside Chantry or join the Disciples - or the Blades. 

They’d married.

Their children would choose vigilance or action.

Then, Exalted Marches came from a Chantry that wanted blood. The Exalted Age wasn’t the only time the Blades lost many of their number. Other purges, or the mercenary work the First Blade would carefully send some of their number to, took a toll.

They stopped making books, the skills lost, and purchased them instead.

The pilgrims trickled off as the Blades watched the Chantry declare more verses ‘dissonant’ because the information was uncomfortable and made people question: certainty was more ‘faith’ to the Chantry outside the mountains than questions. 

“But if you don’t question, how can you hear the truth written into your heart?”

The books had no better answers.

_ ‘They have faded. Only the First Blade comes, or Blades specifically sent. We have faded. Is this what is left of centuries of faithful service? No, I won’t believe it. I am a Revered Mother, daughter of a Revered Father, blessed by the Maker’s gift of magic to serve my fellows. I will have faith. Andraste, hear your Disciples; bring the multitude back to your Chant.’ _

Whit sighed.

“Andraste and Trefir, guide us.”

She couldn’t have said whether the ‘us’ included the now-dead Disciples, the unknown Revered Mother whose journal she read, or the Blades she’d left behind.  _ Guide us.  _ She no longer had faith that the Blades followed Andraste’s path - or even Trefir’s guidance. That had been lost in time with books and information she’d never seen before. 

They could be lies, but… “If they’re lies, it’s a lot of work for just one mind.”

_ ‘Sometimes, Whit, you doubt yourself to inaction! Does it make sense? Don’t discard information because it’s uncomfortable, but don’t doubt it just because you can!’ _

She wasn’t sure any longer.

Despite her feelings, Whit still read.

When she found linen and wool cloth tucked away in one of the library’s alcoves, she took it back with her, painstakingly took apart her second set of threadbare clothing, and started cutting something new.

Her stitches were far from ideal, but every Blade knew enough of all the ‘domestic’ tasks to be able to care for themselves and make do. They were a sturdy, independent people. No. Not they - we.

She looked down at what had been a shirt once, and was now too worn to be used even to clean her axes.

“How long have I been here?”

It had no answer for her.

**

She was a Blade. She was a Blade. The mantra ran through Whit’s mind as she tried to work through everything she’d read.

The Blades and Disciples - they were close. They’d stayed close. It had all...it didn’t matter that it had fallen apart. The Disciples here were those who  _ knew  _ what the Blades were, and who hadn’t fallen from their place.

_ Andraste, guide my tongue. _

She closed her eyes and took a breath.

_ “Betrayed by the husband forsaken _ _   
_ _ She was given to the Archon’s forces _ __   
_ He knew. The armies knew. Yet Andraste _ _   
_ __ Only sang to the Maker, and the people listened.”

The Almarri flowed from her lips, the spare words filled with something more than anger. She gave them the tone of bitter regret and yearning instead of those that would normally be used. Maferath was no faceless villain to her.  _ May my doubt be pure. _

His hadn’t been, once.

It had been full of jealousy mixed with fear and envy.

“Maferath. Brother.” She let the words fall into the empty practice room.

“So, young Blade. You have decided to reclaim what was lost?”

When she opened her eyes, he was standing there. Whit swallowed back what she wanted to say. It wouldn’t help. Instead, she held her Crest so tightly it cut into her hand. “I did.” The Crest...she knew now what should be on the blank backside. “Do you deny me the right?”

The soul of Andraste’s first husband smiled, ever so slightly. That was unexpected, as was the warmth in his eyes. “I never did. You are the one who limited your world. Open your eyes, young Blade. What do you see?”

Her eyes were already open! What did she see? The practice room she had for an unknown number of days.  _ May my doubt be pure.  _ He wasn’t asking for no reason. No questions she’d had here were without purpose. None of them. What did she see? Shelves, the equipment she’d used, the pells, the chest...the door…

The door.

Whit gasped. “Was it that easy all the time?”

Maferath just shrugged his heavy shoulders. “It is only easy when you have discovered the answer, and many will not even ask the question, Blade. Go. Find what you will.”

She stepped past him and opened the door. A featureless, blue-veined corridor met her eyes, with another heavy door at the end of the short expanse. She hesitated; her pack, her armor… _ ‘always be armored.’ _

What was armor in this place, though? She doubted leather would do anything against what could threaten her here. It wasn’t cuts to the body, but the mind and heart she risked in this place. Especially, she admitted, her own. The Blades and Disciples were  _ brothers.  _ There would be no violence here but what she brought upon herself.

She stepped through.

The corridor felt no different than the others, save for the closeness of the door. Turning, she made a tiny trail sign. This one was that of the Disciples, a small flame. They remembered the Chant and the flame that took Andraste from them, the flame that left the ashes and her fading blessing.

The Blades remembered the sword and the Chant - the sword that freed her from her mortal form and let her join the Maker.

All of this filled her mind, along with the bits of what she’d found in the various books and what she remembered from home, as she walked closer.

This door was iron-bound. Something different. She pushed it open.

The room beyond was cavernous after what she’d seen of the Temple thus far, bisected by fire. Even after so long, the scent of scorched meat hung just close enough for someone who hadn’t tasted meat in ages to notice. Faint traces of incense offered a sense of ritual similar to the Chantry she’d spent such a short time near. The walls were still blue-veined, but through windows golden light shone in beams upon the carved floor where the colored glass had shattered under the weight of time. To her left were stairs that ran the length of the room; to her right, beyond the fire, was a small pedestal.

What was this place?

_ “Name yourself, petitioner.” _

Another spirit formed in front of her, wrapped in metalwork with the distinctive leaf-scaled pattern of a dragon. Tevene armor. His helm showed the same motif, etched wings sweeping back from his temples.

He spoke Common.

She responded in Tevene.

“I am Whit of the Blades, brother.” She pulled the Crest of Mercy from under her shirt, to hang loose. The passcodes…she dug them out of her memory. “The actor greets the vigilant.”

_ “We have waited centuries,”  _ came a response also in heavy Tevene. “ _ It has been long. Have you come for the ashes? They remain yet, the hordes outside unable to see past what they believe.” _

The Ashes? “No, I didn’t come for the Ashes.”  _ ‘The Blades would take ashes to save those of their own too wounded for any other means. They knew Andraste would call them still, if their time was done.’  _ “The others are too far, and there were none who needed it.”

_ “Then for what?” _

Was it this easy?

“The sword.”

_ “Ah,”  _ it sighed.  _ “There are none living to greet you, but I will in their stead. Take what you need, Blade. Your faith has been tested.” _

Was this one a spirit or soul? She wasn’t sure, but pieces made her suspect the former. He was more...empty. In either case, she was curious. Closer to the fire she could feel her skin tighten, but a Blade needed to question. She closed her eyes, and smelled.

The charred flesh and incense were still there, along with the faintest scent of something crisp. However, there was no smell of coal or ash, no clarity she associated with fires friendly or cruel.  _ Magic. _ It was magic of some sort; something beyond the physical. Though as her skin could attest, that didn’t mean it was harmless.

It wasn’t just her skin that told her this fire would still burn. The bodies on the floor could as well.

Whit turned away to look at the side of the room with the Ashes. There, in front of a twenty-foot carving in the living stone, was a simple urn forged of silverite. Its watery sheen was unmistakable, even from only stories. But that was not what she wanted. She didn’t come for that, but the sword.

Hessarian’s Blade.

She didn’t see it on the long dias, even as she approached with a murmured prayer and looked behind the urn. Yet Maferath had said what she sought was here!

_ Look. _

There was a heavy chest near the door opposite where she’d entered, but it had been opened. She checked anyway, but it was stripped empty.

Nothing.

Ash filled her mouth now, and she turned back to go the way she came. That’s when she saw it, tucked against the dark shadows of Andraste’s carefully carved robe. There was another chest...this one simple and low.

_ ‘Why bother with decoration? It’s a sword. It’s meant to be used. Thus, the Blades.’ _

She couldn’t let fear make her turn away now, not even with what it might mean if she could lift it. That was if there was a sword in there.

The chest was long enough - the space was deceptively large.

Her fingers traced the lines of the crest along the top of the chest and then moulded into the clasp. “We are the blade, not the hand that wields it. Trefir, guide me.”

She opened it.

There were another two journals within, as well as a scabbarded blade nearly as large as she was.  _ Trefir. _

The blade. The Sword of Mercy. Whit lifted out the items and let the chest close with a puff of dust. She didn’t feel anything when she picked it up, but she was no mage or priest. She was simply herself, young and unsure.

She’d found it.

She could go home.


	15. Chapter 15

**Maferath, once-husband, father - sings not glory but his doubt  
Armies lost against mage-born fury, warriors gone, hope without  
I hear mutters while Tevinter shudders - guide my vision true  
The song is life, not death shading all who also long for you  
Yet shadows now are what I see, Maker let me sing for thee?  
Maker, love, I beg one thing - no matter cost, to you I flee.  
Hold a place, not be for naught  
Live spent freeing all for you  
Shelter them, my blood the fee  
Maker, know soon I will arrive.**

**

There was only one limit to her leaving now: common sense.  _ ‘Never carry a blade you can’t use.’ _

As much as part of her yearned for those she’d left behind, she couldn’t yet. Instead of trying another door, she went back. Her armor, her pack - and Maferath waited that direction. She needed to learn to use it well enough to keep it. There was no other way she would get it back, and there were too many of the Chantry near to risk anything else.

The scabbarded sword went onto the bed next to her as she sat to look at the books. They were dusty and yellow with age - whatever preservation spells had been used, they had been wrought poorly. Or, Whit wondered, had they been cast at all? Even the dark leather was cracked.

Did she dare open them?

While she considered, she turned to the sword. Very little was visible with the heavy leather scabbard, so she started there. 

It was black; whether with age or dye, it was beyond her ability to tell. The leather had dried beyond stiffness, but there was no sign it would fall apart on her. There was no belt, but it looked like it was designed to be hung crosswise on the back - a carrying scabbard? She couldn’t figure out how it could be drawn like that, even by an Almarri. Tevene designs of dragons danced along its length. The little metalwork was also blackened with age. Rubbing it wasn’t enough to clear the tarnish, but based on the fact her fingers turned black, she guessed silver.

Her attention moved to the hilt and guard. It was far from plain; the wired leather of the grip matched the scabbard, but showed more wear. A dark jewel was placed at the crossguard, while the pommel was blackened metal. Yes, as she rubbed it, this seemed to be the same probably-silver as the scabbard. The guard itself was a finely-wrought but heavy bar, offering little protection to fingers. However, it also left little opportunity for a thinner blade to twist in for a disarm. Again, dragons wound along the length - these were wingless drakes in place of the great beasts along the scabbard.

Did she dare draw it?

She snorted. “If I don’t, I came here for nothing.”

Whit still didn’t have the courage to do a traditional draw, but pulled it out about three inches. The blade, nearly welded to the scabbard, protested. She had to yank with all her strength before it grudgingly gave in.

There - painstakingly etched onto the blade itself just below the guard, was a flame. It wasn’t the crest, but it was a mark of Andraste’s followers. It looked carefully done, but by someone with limited experience with artistic work: bold instead of beautiful.

_ “Andraste,”  _ she breathed. It was here. The steel of the sword was finely-crafted of a mix of steel and...silverite, if she wasn’t mistaken. Well, after the centuries of Blight against Urthemiel, that made sense. Silverite also didn’t tarnish or lose its edge over time; valuable for those who knew people would fall, but the precious metal needed to be recovered through years of war. New people were easier to find than new mines.

She’d found it.

The Blade of Mercy.

“Now what?” She blinked as the question slipped out.

Now what?

“I need to take it back, but…” she hesitated. “I can’t carry it in hiding. I have to find a way to disguise it...and…”

And she needed to be able to use it. She could keep her axes where she was used to, but  _ no  _ Blade carried steel they couldn’t wield. It was anathema, in an odd way. The weapons they carried were a way to know the skill and perspective of the carrier. It was also risky. 

“Then again, the sword itself is risky. If it can only be wielded by one blessed by Andraste, then…”

Oh, decisions were difficult. Whit rolled over the options in her mind before deciding on a middle ground. There was time to disguise the sword: she had nothing but time. A new scabbard on its own might be enough, for that matter, since the carvings on the guard wasn’t that obvious from a distance. But to use it, to practice with it?

She shook her head, and went out to the practice rooms. It didn’t take long to work a heavy shelf off of the wall and begin to inspect it. Whit collected the sword and oh-so-carefully laid it out along the shelf.

“Yes,” she sighed. It would work.

With some of the ink she’d collected from the library, she traced an outline, and used her abused knife to start carving. The thin whorls of wood started to come up, only to be brushed or blown to one side.

She wouldn’t try wield Hessarian’s sword, but she could make a practice sword to prepare with. Then, if worst came to worst, she was prepared.

It was backbreaking work. Well, it wasn’t her back that ached, but still. She blew at the almost-blisters along her right hand, the wrist throbbing, then changed hands and went back to it.

The next day, she did the same.

It took ten days to carve it out; days spent training in the morning with a near-silent Maferath, reading as she recovered, and then carving in the evenings until the light from the windows had faded completely.

Once the rough blade was out, then it was the next stage; to narrow the blade some, to carve the hilt properly. Whit didn’t worry about the detailed work, only the way it should fit in her hands. It had a long enough grip to be used two-handed. Good. She’d need it.

_ ‘Get stronger, boy! You’ve got to work at it!’ _

Daddy didn’t know then, that she’d only grow a little stronger, her frame not built for the heavy muscles the men could develop. She’d never have succeeded with his own hammer, or the long blade Olem preferred. She simply didn’t have the weight to manage the savage blows.

Instead, she’d gone for axes.

“I’ll have to manage,” she said, trying to not cry at the pain. It was a different sort of pain than the sharp agony of a cracked bone or sliced muscle...even different than the lazy throb of bruises deep or shallow. This was an angry sort of thing, one that refused to be ignored. But it was this or train with the sword itself and hope that Andraste would forgive her.

No, better to keep working.

More days passed.

Whit balanced the sword itself in her hand, weighing it. Then she did the same to the practice blade. It was a little lighter, but the balance - it was blade-heavy. How to fix  _ that?  _ She chewed on her lip before heading back into the library.

There were coins there...and glue in the practice room.

With enough silver attached to the end of the practice pommel, the blade balanced - almost the same. It wasn’t perfect or even as good as Pollen’s practice blades, but she was no armsmaster. For her crude, uncertain work, it would do. Adrenaline and need would have to cover the difference, should she need to use the sword itself.

Two mornings later, Whit mustered enough courage to come to Maferath with the new practice sword rather than her axes.

“Oh, Blade? What is this?”

Surely he’d seen it as it was being made? “It’s a practice sword. To...practice with. So I can carry Hessarian’s sword home.”

“Why not use the sword itself?”

“It wouldn’t be right.” He kept looking at her. Sometimes Almarri was an uneasy language; it was clear when the speaker was avoiding a full answer. The rest was pulled out of her. “I don’t know if I can wield it, and returning it is more important,” she whispered.

His boots looked as though the leather and fur were at least a full cycle of seasons old. They had signs of wear, but were still hale with miles and months yet to go. It may be irrelevant, but it was easier to inspect her things than meet Maferath’s gaze.

He didn’t sigh, but she didn’t need to look up to be certain of his disapproval. It was cowardice, nothing less, that she’d just admitted.

“Prepare yourself.”

The words startled her enough to force her eyes from his ankles to his impassive face. Searching, Whit couldn’t see any sign of disgust or approval. It was the same measuring assessment that centered there most of their time together.

She shook the thoughts from her mind and angled the blade toward her right side, both hands on the hilt near her left shoulder.

**

The training was brutal, but Whit knew no other way to train.

Maferath refused to allow her to develop bad habits. It was kindness that he had no pity for her. If her grip was wrong, he’d smash the blade from her hands before picking it up and making her look before letting her take it and try again. His hammer, he could move as gracefully through sword techniques as those suited to its crushing weight.

She hated facing what she could never be. Daddy could have - but she lacked the strength or stature to master the blade she needed to bring home.

She hated her weakness, she hated her lack of skill measured against a sword designed for a tall man. She hated her hesitation and the grace that vanished when she didn’t have her axes in hand. Even more than her own weapons, the heavy two-handed blade punished indecision. There was no  _ time  _ to recover from hesitating. If she was out of position, she either retreated or ‘died.’

Long, painful practice kept the thoughts from her face. The memory of pain and her friends back home kept her stubbornly presenting the practice sword morning after morning. One other thing helped more than she’d ever admit: Maferath’s stoic acceptance of her choice and silence about it.

It wasn’t the derision and assumption of failure she’d used back home, but it worked. It worked enough that her tears were more of frustration than helpless fury, easily washed away as she scrubbed off the sweat.

Her hands blistered, then split and bled, then developed new calluses where the sword grip rubbed. Whit didn’t care. She hadn’t lost her axe-calluses, instead she was developing new ones.

Then one day, as Whit was standing back up from the latest defeat, Maferath held up a hand. “You should explore.”

“What?”

He watched her impassively.

“I don’t understand. Where should I explore? Why?”

There was still no answer.

The next word crept out.  _ “Please,  _ Maferath.” She was trying so hard, but there was so much she didn’t understand!

The wrinkles around his eyes loosened slightly. “You must understand, Blade. Can your doubt be pure if you reject what you fear will contradict what you know?”

What?

When had she done  _ that?  _ She’d read! She’d argued with the empty rooms, she’d asked questions on the rare times the ghostly woman appeared - she’d asked questions of him.

She  _ hadn’t  _ tried to read the two timeworn books she’d found with the sword, worried they would collapse under the weight of time, or turn to dust. She had no magic to save them, and there was no one she could ask. But that wouldn’t be exploration.

What didn’t she understand? What did she reject?

_ She left the Chantry and sought the Blightlands. She left the pilgrims for mountains that were achingly almost-familiar. _

“You want me to seek out the  _ Chantry?  _ They have tried to kill out the Blades! They killed the Disciples, and you want me to talk to them?”

He didn’t respond to the tight tension in her voice. “Do as you will, Blade. May your faith be strong.”

_ May my doubt be pure. _

Damn everything, but was he right?

Even if he was, how could she hide the truth of what she was?

_ ‘Well done, lad! You’ll do your father proud.’ ‘Soon, Whitling, you’ll need to find a girl.’ ‘Not bad, boy. You’ll get there yet.’ _

She left to clean up, but the words didn’t stop coming.

The Blades had sent men - and women, especially, given the Chantry’s odd expectations that women led - to find information even within the organization itself. Whit gave a watery laugh.

“After all the lies, after what I’ve hid - why would this be any different?”

It was still hiding, and still for dangerous stakes.

Now, the question was where and how to find people? Whit did her best to ignore the new spike of fear; fear was a constant of life. She’d been trapped in this place for how long now, with no one but the dead and bound spirits to speak to? 

_ ‘You have trapped yourself. Look past the limits you’ve set.’ _

Maferath told her that once already, and she found what he’d set her to: the Ashes.

There were other doors, doors she’d not opened in the library. Perhaps one of  _ those  _ would guide her out.

Out.

Out to the world. To time. To people. Was she ready?

Whit muffled the sound that tried to escape. It had never mattered before if she was ready. Why should it now?

**

She still didn’t start to explore for another two days. Not until her clothes were finished and serviceable, if not fancy. She was supposed to seek out people? Here? How?

‘Explore.’ That was the directive as far as it went, but that didn’t answer the real question of ‘how.’ How was  _ she  _ supposed to meet people that were of the Chantry without betraying the Disciples or herself? Whit felt the curves and edges of the Crest around her neck, then tucked it back under her shirt.

Well, she could be armed and armored, or she could go for innocence. Her pack was still intact, so she could even pretend to be a pilgrim new to Haven...or the Temple, whichever she encountered first.

For now, scouting.

“Armored or not?” That was the main question, and she looked at what she’d made for herself. It was much nicer than her clothing, but it was  _ armor  _ and looked it. It was also new, the edges still sharp. Her jerkin that she’d worn here was lost to her trip and pattern, though she still had the pieces in case she needed to make a second one. 

Armored or not?

Her mind rolled back to the little bit of Haven she’d seen, bustling under those who praised the Disciples’ killers. Townspeople, crafters, hunters...and everywhere, the heavy armor of what were called ‘Templars’ marked by their downward pointing sword and the white-and-blood robes of the Chantry priests.

What would her leatherwork do against the heavy armor of the Chantry’s soldiers? She bit her lip, then nodded.

The knife in her boot would have to do - at least depending on what she found. In this case, camouflage and looking helpless and ordinary might be more valuable than being armored. After all, her limited experience said the Chantry people tended to see what they believed, rather than what was there.

Once decided, she went back to the library. Still she hesitated at the door she’d chosen until she got angry at herself.

“It’s a door!”

It just looked at her, but she knew how much more than ‘just’ a door it was. It was a passage to the unknown - or worse - to the partly-known and dangerous. What value was there in marching off to see if she could fool those who would want her dead if they knew her true loyalty?

Whit coughed out a laugh. “My loyalty is to Andraste and Trefir, just as any of us. Why is that so hard to accept?” Ah, but that got back to the foundations of faith. 

The Disciples, from what she’d read, believed faith as founded in hope. They hoped that the blessing of Andraste would remain; that she yet looked out for her faithful, and that guarding her Ashes was what they should do. The spirits and souls of those bound forever to the Temple had remained loyal even as everything else twisted.

The Blades began with doubt backed by a few pieces of truth. Andraste was killed by Hessarian rather than the Archon, a final blessing and redemption. The Blades were needed, and needed to find that mercy - and if necessary administer it. But the only way to be  _ sure  _ was to question.

So, the Chantry? She’d always been taught that the Chantry based faith on knowledge and constraining what could be right: the Chant had been edited over the years, the colors washed out into a morality story for children. But... _ may my doubt be pure.  _ Was that true? That they had changed the Chant, yes. That they had gradually called Exalted Marches against those who followed Andraste differently - and those who didn’t follow Andraste at all - was true.

She sighed. “It’s easier to believe.”

She stopped, hand on the door.

It was easier to believe. Even for her, raised to question - how much had she  _ not  _ questioned? Whit sighed again. She was also not going to find any answers staring at a door. It simply hung, ancient wood turned to stone, like all the others. Slowly, she pushed it open to find another set of rooms - rooms, not a corridor.

She stepped through.

These rooms were musty with years of disuse, dimly lit by light coming from a few small windows as the library door closed behind her. The remains of pallets slumped inside bed boxes, chests at each end. Wariness caught in her throat as she walked silently through the space. All she could do was stare, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling.

This space was...forgotten. Truly forgotten, by time and magic both. The shadows loomed at the edges of her vision. She struggled to not cough at the dust and grime caught in her lungs, or the tomb-like taste this place left. Forgotten...she moved closer to a wall, curious. The same blue-veined stone was here, so it wasn’t a feature of the ‘lyrium’ or lack of it.

Explore…

Whit left the closed chests that way, having no desire to disturb what belonged to the dead. Unlike in the Blightlands, there was no need - and unlike in the Blightlands, she  _ knew  _ the owners were dead. She passed through a dining space centered with a heavy table, grateful that there was no mockery of supper waiting for maggots. Next was a small washroom and the kitchen. Here she could tell how long it had been: the faint tang of meat was closer to jerky than rot, though the sharp sweetness of mold hung over that. Something almost-fresh was also layered in, though she knew nothing here could be fresh. Apples? Yes, apples - or possibly pears. The sack had sprouts, limp and blackened with death, from where potatoes tried to find soil and failed. 

“They ate well.” She winced at the sound of her voice, no matter how quiet her murmur had been. It was true, though. Mold meant bread. Hanging from above were onions wrinkled and shrunken worse than the scars of the old and cheese dried to leather. Bread, meat, vegetables, fruits - she knew well how the mountains could provide, but bread…

Bread came from grains, and grain needed fields.

The Blades made do with meal using nuts or what they could trade for.

How did the Disciples have bread?

She shook her head. Of course they did - the Blades were in many ways the sword of the Disciples, in the distant past. The  _ Blades  _ would have brought the bread in; or perhaps grain. There would be people who could bake, either among the Disciples or the pilgrims who joined them. Probably - the Almarri ate little grain, independent and relying on what their tribe’s holding could produce.

There were still no answers here. She wandered further.

Darkness closed in on her as she moved from rooms to corridor. It had been so long since she’d seen it, she hadn’t even considered the possibility. Other doors opened on either side, but she chose to follow the main corridor. She could still find her way back, but she wanted to see something. The corners had piles of dust, but she kept going. Memory honed to remember trails could also count turns and the faint chant of how many paces ran through the back of her mind.

The heavy iron-bound door made her pause. The stone around her had grown less veined and darker as she moved, leaving her wondering.

What was this place?

She knew some of it: it was the Temple of the Sacred Ashes - Andraste’s tomb - but it was more than that. The Disciples had built this  _ with  _ the help of the Blades and tribes - with the aid of the dwarves as well, perhaps. Probably. It was carved into the mountain itself, winding through it. For the rest - how had it stayed hidden for so long when the Slayer had found it and been allowed as far as the Ashes, when the Chantry had boiled over the place like a flood-carried anthill?

This door did not push open. It emptied into the wide hall she was in. More, it showed the same age as the spaces she’s tiptoed through; the hinges were nearly rusted through and stubborn with grit. Once she fought with it enough to force a large enough opening for her to slip through, she just looked at it.

Darkness was all she could see beyond, but when she opened her mouth there was a taste of damp and green. Life, growing rampant somewhere not far beyond.

“Well, I won’t know anything without going on.”

But the darkness... she had nothing. No pack, no real weapons, no torch.

“Maybe I should try tomorrow.”

The door wouldn’t close.

Well, that left her few options. She could leave the unknown at her back and trust in the magic of this place, or go forward. After a moment, Whit chose something in between. It didn’t take her long in the musty rooms to find a candle and flint - there was even a hatchet balanced for chopping. It would hold well enough in her belt, especially as it had no counterbalance on the haft.

Armed with light and tolerable steel, she moved toward the door and the darkness. Then, she paused. Would light draw predators?

_ ‘Don’t blind yourself, but think on what hunts,’  _ her mother’s voice came back. They had been her earliest hunting lessons.  _ ‘Men need light, because men were made for day, not darkness. Even the dwarves of the stone use light. Light will let them find you, but if they are upon you it helps most the one who needs sight to work. Against the creatures of the world? They hunt at need, not at anger or belief. Those hunters use darkness, not light, to aid them.’ _

She kept the candle lit. 

Once she squeezed past the door, Whit looked around. The faint blue veins in the stone were still present, and here they left a tracery just enough to see even without the candlelight. However, it was rough-hewn at best. Stone dripped from the ceiling and grew from the floor, surrounded by puddles of cloudy water as the light reflected from it.

“A cave?” Her voice echoed slightly. Sniffing, there was no sign of the pungent bats that usually inhabited these spaces - at least in the caves she’d known. It made sense. Who would follow a cave deep within when there was an obvious temple to be found?

There were, if she remembered, other threats that lurked deep in the stone. She didn’t draw her axe, though. Instead, when the cavern branched, she etched in a trail sign where her lowered hand could brush it. Stepping back, it faded from sight unless she lowered the candle. However, she could feel it and recognize the direction it pointed even with her eyes closed - and do so naturally.

Good.

At each turning, she left one tiny sign. Twice she had to backtrack, the path she chose falling into darkness or suddenly ending in a forest of stone. Another time, she chose to stay out of the water that turned into a lake from side to side. Even though the water was clear and sharp, a careful probing with her hatchet touched none of the stone that looked so close rising from the bottom.

Later, she heard the tiny chirps and whistles of bats. Ducking, she managed to not catch one in her hair as it swooped down, its sleep disturbed. When Whit held her candle high, she couldn’t make out anything but a sense of motion. Was it a large colony or just an active one?  _ ‘You can’t learn everything, boy! Ask the questions you can, but don’t let them paralyze you.’ _

Bats meant there was either prey nearby or, since she’d not seen them deeper, that she was near an entrance. She sniffed, but couldn’t smell anything over the cave’s denizens. Closing her eyes and focusing on her skin gave little more information; the hint of motion in the air around her could be the bats, a breeze, or her overactive desire. Hand on her hatchet, she moved forward.

It wasn’t cold yet. Whit kept moving.

Twenty-seven paces later, she blinked against light far above her. The opening was a rude, narrow one almost lost behind a bramble. She was a Blade; pain was part of living. The toll wasn’t deep enough to bleed freely - it would stop and scab over soon enough. Stooping, she again made a trail sign.

Then she looked beyond. There was a faint glow to one side of the tiny cup she found herself in. it was to her right, and the rest of the way up the steep walls.

“Well.”

The moist freshness of the air was intoxicating, full of rich death and rebirth. Looking at the closest branch, she bit back disappointment. The tang should have warned her it would be evergreen; there was no evidence of either new shoots or windblown leaves.


	16. Chapter 16

**Wars and pain unending, death’s new danger is breeding more hate  
Magic is your gift, to your creation, to serve you and make  
Not power, but kindness - through it, the healing touch, Fade-brought light  
What good is our light against darkness, healing gainst slave-bled Blight?  
Maker, guide me, I beg thee, for I can no longer see your path  
Augurs blinded by god-sarce deserts, now doubt from Maferath.  
In silence, I hear my fate  
Maker, I’ll no longer fight  
Yes. Your will, my love, will pass  
Wait for me, I come to your side.**

**

Whit concentrated on the most urgent questions first, once she could think past the sensations she’d forgotten how to crave. What season was it? The clouds scudding across the sky masked the constellations she could have used to find a season, if the wooded valley didn’t already. What season? It had been...early winter when she went into the Temple, but it was decidedly not winter now. Spring perhaps - late spring?

She blew out her candle and waited the minute it took for her eyes to adjust before stooping to carve another trail sign, then clambered toward the lighter rim. Dawn, perhaps...and there was just enough of a trail left by deer or goats to manage.

The familiarity made her ache, even if the wet, woody flowers and dogwood of home were replaced by something that had lighter veining along its leaves that might be yellow or orange in daylight. It was still outside; still something she hadn’t seen in half a year by her best guess. Her lungs filled themselves with the free air, the wild scents of the woods and rocks.

She rocked back, almost falling, as she peeked over the rim of the valley and saw what had made the horizon glow.

It wasn’t the dawn.

It was Haven.

**

The town was filled with torches and lanterns on the corners of buildings or carried by pilgrims and residents alike. Thousands of candles sent out their cheery warmth from the colored glass of the Chantry and a few other buildings. Even as late as it must be, people swarmed around the place. The inns and taverns burst with laughter and song, audible now that her head wasn’t sheltered by stone. Even the scent of the place assaulted her senses - or was that imagined? It was a mile or more away - it must be imagined.

This...what…

Searching her memory, Whit couldn’t say if the town had changed. It may have been the last living people she’d interacted with, but it had been just as dizzying when she had been in it before. The quietest part was the Chantry.

Somehow it had kept its slight distance from the mass of people around it. They quieted as they entered, and song filled the air, partnered with flickering candlelight battling the colored sunlight through the windows. There were more in the robes of snow and blood than before, but not as many more as she’d expected.

She stared around her, but it was easier than the streets. She didn’t have to understand all of the Trade assaulting her ears; only that of the people directly in front of her. Whit bit her lip before she could snort - or cry. The thought of a Blade finding safety in a  _ Chantry  _ was almost too much to bear after the months of solitude. 

“You look lost.”

Whit focused on the old woman who’d interrupted her musings. “No, not exactly.” She stopped as the woman stared at her.  _ Trade.  _ It was hard to wrap her tongue around it after speaking only her own for so long, but she forced it out. “Maybe. The people...are so many.”

It was embarrassing to be so tongue-tied, and she bit her lip. The Mother considered a moment. While she did, Whit touched the stone next to her and breathed in the incense. Scent was something she’d almost forgotten. It was dizzyingly rich to her starved senses.

Then the woman smiled, rearranging everything to a warmer look. It made her wary. “Come in, then. Pray to Our Lady that the war will end soon.”

War?

“You don’t have to worry, child. The Divine has called for peace, and will mediate here, at the site of Andraste’s mortal tomb.” The reassurance failed, but it was sincerely held.

_ Trefir.  _ “What?” This time, she remembered to use Trade.  _ Caution!  _ She couldn’t let herself keep the lazy habits she’d had in the Temple, where she didn’t need to hide. She didn’t dare use Almarri here - though thank Maferath that she’d been speaking Almarri rather than Tevene. If she remembered, there was bad blood between the Imperium and the other nations.

The Chantry’s internal matters didn’t concern her. They would always find heretics, there would always be another Exalted March. As to a Divine trying to bring peace? Whit hid her shrug.  _ ‘The Chantry’s got a lot of talk of charity, but a lot of war against those who aren’t remembering the Bride the way they want them to.’  _

Cameron’s bitter humor brought a smile to her face before where she was caused it to fade again. This was a Chantry, but it had been one belonging to the Disciples. Even if most of the glass was wrong, it had been sanctified by those the Blades of old considered brothers. She could pray to the Andraste of truth here without wondering if Andraste would hear that thread through the lies.

What would Maferath think of this place? Whit shook the thought out of her mind as she looked at a statue of a woman who was almost familiar from the Temple, only cropped and adorned with symbols of worldly power. The Andraste of the Temple was a woman who may have worn robes, but where the robes were split for riding and climbing to the Holds of her kin. Her face here lacked the time-worn marks of clansigns, and her cheeks were full and soft.

_ Andraste, guide me. I don’t know what to do. I need to take the Sword of Mercy home, but I am afraid.  _ Daddy’s face replaced Andraste’s as she looked up, as ridiculous as it would be over breasts and a lowland dress. Was it closed with anger and betrayal, or the proud light that had shown when she was still his son?

Going home - she wasn’t afraid of the distance. She’d made it here, after all, and trusted wits and Trefir to guide her home. What worried her was the talk of war. She hadn’t heard it when she came. That meant only a little, since she had avoided people - but now, it was all people discussed.

After a time, she stepped back out of the Chantry. She needed to hear more. Where was this war? Would it affect her? What new group of heretics had challenged the Chantry to the point of suing peace - or was it the Imperium?

The Trade hurt her head, but she needed to know. Walking along the streets, she lurked near a tavern’s walls, letting the shadows give her privacy while she snatched at the conversations that left its windows.

_ War.  _ Now that she recognized the word, she put together how often it fell from the lips around her. There were three topics in Haven: faith, the Temple with its ‘missing’ ashes, and war. Whit listened, but heard nothing of her people. The Blades were not at war.

The Templars were.

That was why there were so few here. The Templars had gone to war with the...mages? There were no squares - no, circles. The rest went past her, forgotten as she tried to understand the rest of what this Chantry spoke of. As before, somehow the Mother had offered her a bed. She took it. The walk back was longer than she wanted to do, especially with her mind so full. The darkness was unnerving after so long. She missed...

She missed - 

Whit sat up in the bed that night, the hum and shouts of people outside still keeping her sleep light. It wasn’t just the press of people who would kill her, should they know what she was. She missed the training.

She missed Maferath.

It was her time in that room, the morning sessions, the rarely-won smiles that she wanted, even more than the faded determination of Pollen, the acid humor of Olem and Cameron… 

The Chantry was an uneasy haven, but she used it until she had heard enough. This war was internal, and she looked like neither mage nor Templar.  _ ‘You, a Templar? They’d have to be soft in the head!’ _

“They are, but not that soft,” she whispered back to Olem. Her personal vow had become something used by Trefir himself, she was sure of it. By her pride-struck oath she’d found not just the Sword of Mercy, but information they needed. She might not look like a Templar, but there were mages among the Blades. They could die even without a March, and it sounded like there were people angry enough that they might do it themselves.

If she was empty-handed, this might have been enough on its own, but she wasn’t. She had found it. She could carry it back. The Chantry still had its secrets in its walls: the small chest in its hidden nook. No. The Sword needed to come first.

_ I’ll return for it,  _ she promised. It was something that should be saved. For a day she considered taking it with to the Temple and hiding it among the library and spirits that guarded Andraste’s Ashes, but decided not. If the Disciples of old wanted it elsewhere, that much should be respected. Not everything should be behind the gauntlet especially when the Chantry still sought the Temple’s secrets. What she needed was the Sword and the books that spoke of the Blades.  _ Those  _ secrets, she needed to reclaim.

It was almost a week before she made her way back to the Temple - long enough to find day and night less unnerving, and for her experience to take on a surreal quality. That meant it was time to go. Truth was truth. Whit refused to let the Chantry’s comforting illusions blanket her, so she left. Finding the valley again took more effort than Whit had expected, but she found the steep cup again. Brambles lined the walls.

She sacrificed more blood to the rocks, and yet more to various thorns until she felt her trail sign against the trunk of one of them. Here.

Yes, it was south of Haven, and when she crawled past the leaves and branches, she found the crack of a cave. Here. She squeezed until it started to open, then it was ‘just’ a matter of feeling for the low marks she’d left on the cave walls. The cool scent of wet stone overpowered the bats after a time. Drops of water echoed sweetly as they fell, and her breathing came easy. 

Whit managed to find herself back before the cracked door without having to backtrack, though some of the marks had been hard to find.

Walking back in, she moved through the abandoned hallway and desolate remnants of the Disciples who had lived before. When she found her way back to the practice room, it must have still been morning.

“So,” Maferath greeted her as if she hadn’t been gone. “Prepare yourself.”

She smiled, blinking rapidly, and found her crude practice blade.

“I am.”

The routine pulled her back in. She slept. In the morning, she trained again - but the outside world pulled at her as well.

_ War. _

Her people.

They needed the knowledge she had as much as they needed the Sword of Mercy. Daddy’s temper was an unknown, but she was used to doubt.  _ Fear and doubt birth hope.  _ Surely this would prove her worth. Wouldn’t it?

It would. It had to. Besides, there were the others.

“Goodbye,” she murmured to the spirits bound within the walls. “Andraste’s mercy find you.”

She left the whispers behind, taking the Sword - and her questions.

**

Whit shrugged the heavy blade higher on her back and moved carefully around the bustling anthill that was Haven. Maferath...the others...she shook her head. Real or not, they weren’t Blades, and she had her duty. She’d promised.

The seasons had changed. It was winter - had it truly been a year? 

“I’m coming back,” she swore aloud. “I said I would.”

They hadn’t mourned her mother for two years - her father hadn’t accepted she was dead for at least three. Until then, the hope had remained that she would return, battered as so many others, with that half-smile on her freckled face.

She sighed as she looked at the paths. “The road is easier to travel, but there will be people.” 

_ What d’you get off the roads but near towns and cities, or where there are a lot of travellers? _

“Pollen, I didn’t run into any bandits on the way here!” Then Whit sighed again. “I also didn’t look like I had anything of value.”

That was a hard admission, but true. Unlike the fat and clumsy pilgrims heading to Haven, she’d been ragged, wiry, and without anything but well-used and cared for arms and armor. If anything, they might have taken her for a bandit or hunter herself. There was a code of sorts: those living on the edges of civilization tended to ignore each other in favor of preying on the civilized.

“Trefir knows we Blades have used that often enough.”

_ ‘No bandit will tell the Chantry where we’ve gone. Why would they? What would the Chantry do but hang them after giving them their reward? In this, the certainty of ‘justice’ works against them. Are we bandits? No. But mercy - if the bandits prey on the stupid rather than the helpless, why should we interfere? Better to let them do so and keep the armor we have. That mercy breeds the mercy of invisibility. They know what we will look away from, and we know what they will in turn.’ _

It wasn’t Trefir, but from the journals she’d found in the Temple. The Sacred Ashes...Maferath…

Whit shook her head, confused. She could open the others found with the Sword itself, but she didn’t want to. Her mind was already stretched too far with knowledge that didn’t make sense. Hopefully this would to the others. Gidgit would love to delve into the handful of books Whit reclaimed, Cameron would snipe, but be at her side. As to Pollen…

_ ‘Just come back, lad.’ _

Did Pollen have faith in her, or simply wanted her back? She shrugged. She had the Sword. That was what mattered. She’d sworn she’d find it, and she had.

Whit shook her head out of her memories, and stepped down the thin animal track rather than making her way to the road. No, it was better to skirt the Blightlands again. Even bandits didn’t trespass there. They didn’t know how to survive there.

The dead did. The Blades did. The Wardens...well, the Wardens had no reason to ask questions of  _ her.  _ Besides, there was no Blight, no massed Darkspawn.

The nights were cold. Her Temple blankets were useful, as the year without the elements left her almost as vulnerable to them as the pampered lowlanders were. She snorted. ‘Lowlanders.’ The reading she’d done had changed her perspective.

_ Maferath had… _

_ ‘May your faith be strong, young Blade.’ _

What a strange thing for him to say. He had watched her as she nodded and hung the balderic around herself, measuring and shifting to make sure the tip of the greatsword’s scabbard wouldn’t catch at her heels or drag in the dust. It was almost her size - something fit for her daddy’s hand, not her own.

_ ‘May someone come who can wield the sword. My Second can’t - nor any of the others I had tested. Andraste, watch over your Blade until it is ready to be wielded again.’ _

Whit gnawed on a piece of dried meat, listening to the wind whisper across the snow and shape it into waves.

_ ‘Andraste’s pyre lives on in the sword. It is a piercing burden.’ _

She shook her head. “It’s a burden I’m glad I don’t have to carry.” After all, why would she? Olem, maybe, if Daddy...but that was a thought she didn’t want to have. Instead, she drank from her waterskin, the snowmelt freshened by a few pine needles stripped and added in when she’d packed it full at midday.

_ Daddy didn’t doubt. _

Was that needed, though? Strength had always mattered for the Blades.

_ Except it hadn’t. _

The insistent voice wouldn’t leave her alone. Instead of listening, she decided to take the next hours and get a bit further along. With this winter already heavy with snow, even as leaves clung to the trees, it was harder to spot the warning signs of the Blightlands. So long as she could see leaves, she hadn’t crossed over.

_ If Daddy didn’t doubt, then could he believe?  _ Her breath puffed into the air, the cloud of frost hanging for a moment before she walked through it.

There were better things to worry about. The cold, or whether the blade on her back would stick in its scabbard after so long were things that she couldn’t solve, but were less concerning to ponder as she moved.

Doubt…

That night she didn’t find a farmhouse or abandoned village, but she had a small tent and enough blankets for warmth. More, she had the moonlight on the snow. Curled up in her nest, she listened to the pop and snap of her small fire and stared at the shifting patterns of gold and silver. Then she followed the habit of months and reached for a journal.

The cold hadn’t stiffened the binding, but she was still careful with it. The words of a First Blade mattered.

_ ‘It aches within. Mercy’s demand is something not everyone can endure - and the Blade itself knows, just as we as Blades know if we are the weapon or the hand. Most need another to wield them. Although we are all slaves for generations, the Almarri blood runs strong. Not in our height or weight, but in our minds. Most of us long to act. The weapon wants to be used - and will twist in the hand if the hand isn’t careful. Thus, the Blade. We have relied on it. _

_ ‘It doesn’t just hang at my hip, but in my heart. Andraste, your burden is great, but I carry it gratefully.’ _

The prayer that followed was one that she didn’t know, but she murmured it in Almarri. 

_ Andraste calls the penitent, not the brazen - the doubter  
_ _ Not the fool who fearful or fearless believes he has answers  
_ _ The one who questions, seeks and in the seeking finds more questions  
_ _ Is the hand. The Blade binds its wielder, the Blade binds the faction  
_ _ Action-seeking to mercy, the mercy-gift of Andraste’s death  
_ _ Births the chains for the active, frees the doubter’s uncertain faith.  
_ _ Pain, please become laughter  
_ __ Doubt, spark our hopeful actions  
_ The weight freeing final breath  
_ __ Beg the Bride for mercy’s heart-wound.

It ended...incomplete. There was  _ more,  _ she was sure of it...but where?

“Are there other journals? This just doesn’t...fit.” Mercy’s heart-wound? What could cut the First Blade? “How can the Blade itself force hope? How can it chain action?”

She shook her head at Olem’s face.

_ ‘You know it needs to change. You knew when you left.’ _

“Nothing but the Bride herself could stop Daddy,” she admitted to him. “I can’t. A Challenge - a Challenge against him is asking for death. But maybe it will be enough, finding this. The Blade is something we’d lost for so long.”

_ What is different about it? _

Scrabbling, she pulled it toward her, then realized what she’d grabbed. Its hilt. The hilt that was supposed to reject those who shouldn’t hold it...had no effect.

_ “No,”  _ she breathed, the word pulled out of her. Yet it felt...like a sword. Just like the greatsword she’d whitled and slaved over so she could train just in case. “That’s…”

It lay against her thigh where she’d dropped it, a bar of dark ice that didn’t react to her stare. That was wrong.  _ May my faith be strong.  _ She  _ had  _ to believe.

_...may my doubt be pure. _

It  _ looked  _ like she expected Hessarian’s blade to look. It was Tevene in every way that mattered, with a grip meant for battle and the weight needed by a strong man.

_ The last First Blade was a woman. _

_ ‘..we don’t have the height…’ _

Daddy  _ did  _ have the height of the Almarri, though few of the Blades did.

_ ‘...the hilt warmed, warning me off.’ _

This hilt didn’t. Did that mean she was supposed to carry it? “Me? No. No, that can’t be. I’m all of sixteen - seventeen! I’m not strong enough. I did this to -”

The words choked her, but it was Gidgit’s face she saw with Pollen’s...and hazy behind them, her mother’s. No. She was  _ wrong  _ to doubt. That book - there must be more. Whit tore open her pack to find the ones she’d taken from the same chest that held the Sword of Mercy. There would be something in them to explain why she was wrong to doubt.

There they were. She’d kept them wrapped separately because of where they’d been, so they could be the first to be studied and saved. They would have answers. They  _ needed  _ to have answers.

They were incomprehensible, written in several different languages. Even the Tevene was nonsensical, speaking of portents and promises.

“What?”

No. No, that couldn’t be. They were with the sword. They were what was left by the First Blade. There must be something she wasn’t understanding! It had been in that chest, with the sword, guarded by the Ashes.

That was when it struck her.  _ This wasn’t Hessarian’s sword.  _ It had never been the sword. She’d been a fool. It was all for nothing.

“I did this to prove myself,” she sobbed. “I don’t know why, but I wanted Daddy...want Daddy...it should all be the way it was!”

It would be easy - not quick, but _easy_ - to just go. Besides, she had what she came from. She just had to believe. The doubt wormed deeper. No matter how she looked at the Blade, it was...a sword. It looked Tevinter - it was a powerful weapon - but…

“Am I supposed to feel something?”  _ If I don’t, am I really a Blade?  _ Maybe she  _ was  _ the fraud Daddy accused her of being.

The sword lay silent across the extra blanket. It had no more answers for her than the empty sky, or the fog of her breath against the firelight. At least tonight she’d found a Blight-ridden homestead with most of a roof and some ham dried to stone on a shelf. It would soften in the pot by morning, she hoped.

None of this answered her questions or rumbling stomach, but the questions were what kept haunting her. 

_ “Am  _ I a Blade? I must be. Maferath and the Guardian recognized me as one. The Crest...but it was more than that. They called me Blade.”

_ ‘Maferath was the traitor who gave up Andraste. Great opinion to follow, lad.’ _

“I’m not a fool, Cameron!” She sighed and didn’t finish the rest aloud, even just to the Cameron in her head.  _ I’m also no lad.  _ But Maferath, he knew. He’d repented, he’d doubted and failed, but was accepted by the Disciples and gave eternity to make amends.

She looked at the Blade again. It didn’t look back.

“If it weren’t for the hilt, I’d think it just another sword,” she admitted to herself. “Maybe it’s easier that way - but if that was it, why would the First Blade say it didn’t accept her Second?”

_ Her  _ Second. A First Blade, one who wore the Blade of Hessarian, had been a woman.

It didn’t accept anyone at that time.

Whit nudged the sword with her foot. Even that didn’t cause a reaction. It just…

“You’re nothing! You’re just a hunk of metal! That’s it? The Blade of Hessarian is just...nothing? Belief? Wishful thinking?” Her shouts didn’t have any more effect, and she swallowed the rest.

No. No, the Blade  _ had  _ to have meaning. It had. She’d read the journals, and they fit within what Trefir had said long ago. The Blade mattered, and contained the promise of mercy for the one who dared wield it - otherwise, the Blades were nothing and guided by only hope and fear, the same as the Chantry that trimmed and changed Andraste’s words.

“Please,” she begged. “Do something. Anything.”

The last words Maferath spoke to her…

_ May your faith be strong.  _

She’d responded the way any Blade would. “May my doubt be pure,” she murmured. “No. The Blade  _ has  _ to be real. I can’t have failed for nothing.”

The niggling part of her heart pushed the fact that for Daddy, this wouldn’t be failure. His ‘son’ returning with the Blade for him to wield?  _ No one would challenge him then. _

It would be easy.

“He’d change. He’d realize…”

He wouldn’t. She knew that. Doubt. Maferath had  _ told  _ her the Blade was there for the taking. She’d found this at the resting place of the Ashes. Surely…

_ ‘What Blade needs to see its wielder? We wait in our sheath ready to be used.’ _

The training area, the journals, the path to the Library, and the other to the Ashes themselves - where Maferath waited was a place made for a Blade. It was familiar, and let her keep her routines while giving access to the rest.

The resting place…

She’d had to discover that.

She looked at the sword. “What had he said? ‘The Blade has always been before you?’ Something like that? But this is the one I  _ found.”  _

Nothing answered, but the doubts…

A week later, and they still hadn’t faded.  _ ‘It warmed a warning against his palm.’  _ The blade she carried did nothing. The First Blade wore it at her hip, but that was ridiculous. Even Daddy couldn’t wear a greatsword anywhere but his back.

She stumbled and caught herself against a Blighted tree. It cracked, shedding black dust as she flinched. 

_ “It’s not the Blade of Hessarian.” _


	17. Chapter 17

**Dreams unending, visions waking, bright as stars to light the true way.  
Your throne stands lonely, your vision passes past created; stay.  
Creations, in need of guidance, your light Maker has gone dim,  
Brighten for us your creation - stay not in the Fade, us condemned.  
We have lost our purposed blessing, Maker turn back your gaze.  
This my heart-song calling outward, brighten stars, shine through the haze.  
To me come, Maker this I pray  
My truest song not to him  
Whom I wed, fears to assuage  
But to you, whence now reside?**

**

The knowledge shook her as she stared at what should have been the Sword of Mercy. It refused to change for her needs. Whatever she’d grabbed, it wasn’t Hessarian’s sword.

_ The only certainty of a slave is death - and fear. But fear leads to doubt, and doubt births hope. _

“Stop it.  _ Stop it!”  _

The ringing of her shout into the silent evening startled her. What was there to  _ stop?  _ Maferath’s eyes watched her now, too.  _ Doubt…  _

_ ‘I love you. Be strong.’ _

She’d left. “You lied, Mother, and you  _ left! I don’t want your love!  _ All I want is…”

Whit stared at the blade that had sparked a blizzard of doubt. It didn’t hurt her. Well, then it shouldn’t hurt Daddy. She could bring it back. It would be fine - maybe the rest had faded...enchantments…she didn’t need to give back all the journals. 

She could let the lies build on lies, and hope it would keep Daddy’s temper, protect her and the others.  _ Is that what Mother did? _

How much had that helped, in the end? And this time, it wouldn’t be a lie about just one person. It would be a lie about  _ everything.  _ Could she really do what the Chantry had always done? Had she corrupted so far? 

Pollen shook his head.  _ ‘You know better, lad. Andraste’s death was no enchantment.’  _ Blood pulsed against her temples, and she pressed the heels of her palms against them. Rocking, the sword fell forgotten against her hip and the blankets that dropped from her shoulders. If it was no faded enchantment…

No.

No, this was the better way.  _ Believe.  _ That’s all she had to do, believe. No one else would expect more if she didn’t give them the rest. If she didn’t let them know the truth about the Disciples, about what the Blades had been. They’d sent  _ pilgrims  _ to the Temple once. They’d been something more than what they’d become.  _ ‘You, step back?’  _ Olem scoffed in her mind.  _ ‘Boy, you’ve never learned to retreat. Sometimes it’s necessary - but somehow you manage.’ _

“You said what I sought was in front of me! That it was always there!”

Maferath, tied to the Temple far behind her, didn’t answer her wail. He had, though, when she’d talked with him. The apparition had never had more than riddles, but he’d talked with her. He’d called her Blade - more than most had.

“ _ Why,  _ if this is what you left me to do? Why didn’t you tell me? How long did I work on the practice blade, how long did I train, and you  _ knew  _ it was false!” Anger was almost foreign to her, but she wrapped herself around it rather than notice the tears seeping past her control. “You called me Blade,” she whispered, “and left me with a lie.”

_ Just as mother had,  _ the traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. It would be easy - so easy - to keep going. What was one more lie, after the one she’d lived under for so many years? The sword had fooled her, and that was with the journals and the spectre of those who had gone before standing in front of her. Why would another doubt? The sword was old enough, and had markings of the Imperium. She could give it to her father, let him have the easy lie, and perhaps he would be happy.

_ Perhaps he would forgive the lie her mother had told, if she just told a new one. _

The person she had been before the Temple would have done so. The cold center of her, the whispering voice - she would have listened. It was the easy option.

Whit gave a shuddering sigh. “I’m not that person any longer,” she told the wind and Blighted trees. “If I was, I would have gone back at the first spectre. I would have died in the first room - by starvation or my own hand.”

If she wasn’t that person, then who was she?

Clenching her fingers around the Crest, she could feel the edges cutting into her hand. There weren’t many choices, but she had them. She could  _ make  _ them. She could keep her life of fear and desperation, and live a lie. She could abandon this sword and walk away, her Trade good enough to let her live a different life. Who would recognize her now?

She snarled at the useless greatsword, then slung it over her back. Two days, and the farmhouse would still have something left to eat. He’d told her everything she needed to know, she’d just been too blinded with certainty to hear it.

_ ‘May your faith be strong.’ _

...may her doubt be sure.

She’d ignored her doubts. Faith  _ lived  _ by doubt. Instead of walking forward toward fear, she retraced her steps toward the western mountains. “Wait for me, Pollen. I’ll be back...but I have an oath to keep.”

She wouldn’t be her mother.

She would be Whit. Whoever that person was becoming.

**

The path back was long, but it was straight. She had to wait out a blizzard, but two weeks later, Whit hid the sword along the road and walked back into Haven as just another pilgrim. Who would recognize her?

There were more armored men and women now and even more houses.  _ So many houses... _ she stared. “What - is the war over?”

The woman turned after pounding in a nail. “You’ve been on the road long, boy? Don’t get your hope’s up. The war’s gotten worse, and Haven’s the one refuge for the Faithful. Word is the Divine herself is coming here in the hopes that Andraste’s blessing will be stronger and bring the mages and Templars back to Her path.” She sighed. “A decade after it was found by a heretic, Andraste save the Hero’s soul. Maybe Andraste will reveal Her ashes to the Divine, and that will heal the Chantry.

_ A decade? _

No.

It hadn’t been a year. It had been  _ three.  _ How many times had her hair grown and she needed to cut it?

“You’re fine, boy, trust in the Divine.” The words washed over her even if they were meant well. “It’s been a long time coming, but she’ll heal it. You’ll see.”

With hardly a word, Whit fled to collect the useless sword she’d pinned her hopes on, then left the road for the hills.

She could find the signs again - and she needed the truth this time.

**

“Everything has been for nothing.” Whit let it fall to the floor, ignoring the dull clang that echoed against her heart. “How long? How much have I done, how much have I worked for, for a  _ fraud?  _ Another lie? Damn you, Maferath, how long? How could you lie to me, too!”

She hadn’t expected an answer: when had she ever gotten an answer to that question?

The quiet words, then, startled her. “I have never lied to you, Whit.”

“No? You told me to look, you said what I sought was that way, and that led me to  _ this!” _

“Did I?” He ignored her scream; the best sign yet that he was a soul, not a spirit to be perturbed by emotion. “Do you remember what I said? Open your eyes and look. What you seek is there.”

Even now, she couldn’t take her anger out on him. She wrapped herself around her knees, refusing to look at his form. It was shimmering; it was of the past, of magic and faith. Her time with those at Haven had forced her to face the differences, even if she wasn’t sure what those differences were.

Look? She’d looked! “I did!”

He shook his head. “You looked, and did not see.  _ Think,  _ Blade.”

This time it was an order without any enigmatic words. She rubbed her eyes against her knees, letting the cloth abrade as much as it dried her tears. Think? She did! She had been standing right here when he told her to look, that it was in front of her! All that she could see was the door, some shelves, and that chest. Maybe she should accept another lie, bring this sword back - what could it hurt? She could wield it safely, and what would the others know?

Another lie. The weight of it struck too deep. But what else could she do? The shelves, she’d stripped bare, and it’s not like she’d been able to open the...

The…

“I’ve been so blind,” she whispered. “It was right there.”

Right there.

It wasn’t large enough for the greatsword she’d worked far too long to wield, but the stories only called it a ‘great blade.’ What, in Tevene, did ‘great’ mean? Large, yes, but also mighty, powerful - masterful.

Hessarian was a Magister.

He wouldn’t have carried the monstrous thing she’d struggled to master.

Still on her knees, she crawled the handful of feet to the nondescript chest in the corner. It had never opened.

_ When was the last time I tried? _

She had when she first found this place and explored it. It wouldn’t budge, and she couldn’t find a key - so she’d given up. She’d just...accepted the first answer she’d gotten, and then forgot about it.

Whit swallowed.

There was no padlock, but there was intricate metalwork and banding across it, and the clasp would not lift.

Even now, she could not lift it.

What could be the key? Frustrated, she almost turned away. She could live on her own here, or she could tuck tail between her legs and run home. But...something itched at her. This wasn’t intended to be a struggle. The sword  _ belonged  _ to the Blades. The Disciples and Blades were brothers.

Therefore, opening it had to be easy for a Blade. A true Blade, one who remembered the closeness. One who knew the Disciples. None of them did now, and the Disciples were dead.

_ One,  _ a silent voice inside her said,  _ knows the Disciples and the past. _

No.

But yes. She did. She’d read everything, she’d mourned the loss of the Disciples to desperation, she’d cried a few hard tears for the fading of the Blades from brothers in faith to bandits and mercenaries protecting a past for a reason they no longer knew.

“We are the blade, not the hand that wields it.” The Tevene flowed. “Andraste, wield me as you will.”

Where the last came from, even she couldn’t say - but it came. She’d been used for so long - but this time, she was choosing. Or trying to. She swallowed, and pushed on the lid of the chest again.

This time, it opened effortlessly. A puff of cedar and piney oil came from within along with the bitter earthiness of well-cared for leather. The hilt was silverite, the crossguard with a stylized wyvern rather than the drakes of the greatsword. The pommel was the same silverite, a metal that was at the time more precious than jewels, cast into a seven-pointed star. Even the grip was different: it was a purple-black hide Whit had never seen before that oozed magic enough for even her bones to feel it.

It was the thin imprints along the leather that made her realize - it had come from something scaled.

There was a journal.

She ignored the sword to pick it up.

Unlike the ones she found with the greatsword, she could read every word in Tevene.

_ ‘...have none ready to follow me. Even my second, as good a man as he is, feels the heat rise when he tries to touch the hilt. The sword retains the fire that took Our Lady, just as Her ashes have come to heal. _

_ ‘There is no one else, and I can feel the storm ahead. I will not face it. This weakness has spread, and will take me before I can return. The Blades need to be united. He has promised to tell the others the Blade rests here. When Andraste calls, one will answer. _

_ ‘Until then, let it be my vow that we have not and will not forget our brothers. Vigilance and Mercy, protection and action. We are two sides of a coin: if one falls, so shall the other. Trefir guide my people. _

_ ‘Bless you, Blade who comes. Wield them well. _

_ ‘Ragnhild, Ebele’s daughter’ _

Whit sank back, one hand clutching the precious book.

_ Ragnhild. _

_ Daughter. _

Then the rest sank in.

_ ‘Wield them well.’ _

Her words -  _ her  _ words were from First Blade to...First Blade. They were deep with the regret she would not meet her true successor and full of faith that they would come. Successor.  _ ‘The blade heats when any hand draws near.’ _

_ Hessarian’s Blade can only be wielded by one who is blessed, chosen by Andraste. The Blades are the same. _

_ We are the blade, not the hand that wields it. _

_ Doubt everything. Question it all. Knowledge will kill. There are none so blind as those who know the answers. _

The  _ blade,  _ wet by Andraste’s blood, was as much a tool as her ashes.

“What will you, Blade?”

Maferath’s voice surprised her.

“You…” she cleared her throat and tried again. “You knew this was here.”

“I have watched over it, my penance to be always closest to those who were marked by Andraste’s death, never to see her face. Every Blade who has come, I have challenged. Every Blade who has come, I have eventually fallen to.”

The words tolled out not just the pain, but his acceptance. 

“Pain purifies, young Blade. So do questions.”

“May my doubt be pure.”

He just nodded to the breathed words.

She reached forward, then pulled her hand back as though burned. Panic choked her. If she could touch it - the trusted second of the last First Blade who carried the sword couldn’t!  _ Only the one blessed by Andraste. _

Wield them well.

_ I’m no leader! I can’t wield them! I don’t know where to! _

Pollen’s voice.  _ ‘Only if you doubt can you find truth.’ _

So many others, pouring over her.

“You hesitate.”

She shook her head. “It can’t be me. I’m just…”

“The one who could question her own blindness. I have no say over who may carry your sword, but you are the first in over a century to come, the first in nearly three centuries to find it. The knowledge was abandoned or ignored in fear. Believe, or don’t.”

Could she refuse to try, after so long? ‘ _ Heat when they came close _ .’ She didn’t have to get burned. Whit forced herself to open her eyes. “I’m not afraid of being burned.” Her voice rasped against her throat. “I’m afraid I won’t be.”

_ Daddy wouldn’t give up leadership. Not to her - not to anyone, but especially not to the ‘son’ who failed him. _

Maybe...maybe she could convince him.

She closed her eyes.

Her hand shaking enough to feel, she reached into the chest. Her left hand grabbed the scabbard, and her right, sweat-slicked and clammy, wrapped around the grip.

It was cool.

There was no pain. Then she ate her words at the sudden piercing through her heart, sharp enough to make her gasp. Whit convulsed around it, but didn’t lose her hold. A keen forced itself from between her gritted teeth before it vanished, all but the faintest ache she was convinced she’d feel with every heartbeat.

The blade of Hessarian.

The Blades of Hessarian.

They were hers, now. If she had the courage to claim them.


	18. Chapter 18

**All the people, slave and warrior, leaf-eared whispers, god-lost dwarf  
Together, Maker’s second children, sing your gold glory soft  
Maker, hear us, hear me calling, Call of loneliness afraid  
Whispers warning, first-born’s dark envy of what we here create  
Spirits calling, your veil clouding vision of non-mage and hope  
Maker, lead us to your city, Golden throne - to you elope  
My song they now hold aloft  
Promised return, you have said!  
Veil-blinded, my voice must grope  
To dream-born whispers, you I’ll find.**

**

She couldn’t stay. The heartpain of the sword beat against her whether it was near her or not when she considered finding an excuse for one more day, a few more trips to the library. Two days later, she gave up.

“I need to go,” she told Maferath after their practice. This one, unusually, ended in a draw.

He nodded. “Our years have been a joy, Blade. You are and are not who you were when you came. Remember we remain here yet.”

“I will.” Her breathing was still ragged, but she tucked her axes back into her belt. She’d used the sword once. It was enough to know that she could; it was more comfortable as a hand-and-a-half, but her hands were small enough to let her do so as necessary. She’d stick with her axes so long as she could.

The hint of heaviness that contracted around her made her look at Maferath again - what had she said? She shook her head when he didn’t do more than that sigh, then started packing.

Her armor - she looked at both, then decided on the more worn set. The scabbarded sword she quickly wrapped in a blanket and put in the pack, ignoring the extra pulse of welcome pain. It was a sensation she didn’t want to face. 

“Should I take the books?”

There were so many that she’d found, and that wasn’t including the ones from the Chantry of Haven. Finally she decided to take the journals of the Blades, but leave the others. They would add history and help, but they were not hers. They belonged to the Disciples - and even if the Disciples were all dead, that didn’t mean they had all abandoned the Temple or their duty.

Whit shook her head against the new ache, unsure of its source. “Neither did we,” she insisted, even if she doubted the words as she spoke them. “It wasn’t abandoned.”

The books were tucked down at the bottom, then the clothes she’d made, then both the heavy leather jerkins.

What else?

Her blanket didn’t fit any longer; she rolled it tightly, then found twine in the practice room to tie it to the bottom of the pack, where the rings connected the carry straps. The rations were wrapped and added to the rest.

That was when she noticed the greatsword.

She could leave it here.

_ It could still serve its purpose. _

Or she could bring it back - a sword that anyone could hold, one that wouldn’t turn on the one who tried to bear it. No. She didn’t need the warning pulse to know that wouldn’t work. Even on her own, she’d rejected that. It would just add more lies to the ones the First Blades had started telling over the centuries, and lies would not light the path back to what they should be.

What the Blades needed was truth.

She tucked the two false books under one arm, the greatsword slung awkwardly over her shoulder, and looked around one last time. She’d been here so long...so long.

Maferath’s words - he’d said something? She’d not paid attention, and she wouldn’t ask now. It would come to her. What mattered is that he thought her worth something. What mattered is that she’d...been there. Maybe she’d even lightened this little bit of time.

Blinking again, she stepped back into the practice room and looked around.

He’d cared, she wanted to believe.

He’d thought her worth something.

“I’ll be back, if I can. And..Andraste ease your burden.”

It would be years before they could send pilgrims again - years before they truly understood what they were and what they should do, she suspected.

“May your faith be strong,” she finally said, and walked out the door to the Temple and Ashes.

The sword went back into the long case, along with the false journals. This time, she didn’t go back through. She’d said her goodbyes, and she couldn’t see it again. Whit knelt for a moment before the urn, the great statue flickering far above her.

_ Guide me, Andraste. Help me see, Trefir. I’m afraid. _

She had to go back, even if she didn’t want to. But it wasn’t even that - she didn’t  _ know.  _ Pollen, Olem...Cameron and Gidgit, would they have wed yet? She couldn’t see either of them with anyone else. Daddy. Char and Coal.

It was home.

It was  _ home. _

If she said it enough, she’d keep believing it - but where else was? There was no answer from Andraste but the one she’d slipped into her pack, the one that pulled at her heart. Pain clarified things; the constant beat made her wonder, made her look again.

The door on the other side of the altar could also open, as silent as though it had been fresh-oiled. When she sniffed, the brisk crispness of outside caught her attention. The exit, this way, was close.

It was, only the overhang of a cliff hiding it from view, but it faced north rather than down the mountainside. There were other trails she could take, and she did. With Hessarian’s blade in her possession, she didn’t dare Haven.

Instead of working down the mountain, she went up. Child of the heights, it was easy to do before she slipped south for days to work her way back down the mountains far closer to the Blightlands than most Fereldans would dare.

This time, she didn’t remain within the comfort of the desolate, blasted nightmare-scape of the remnants of the Horde. Well, not usually. There were some brave enough to dare into these spaces, where the trees were thin and grass was more patchy than it should be. She needed to understand. These were people who knew hardship, and who could thrive.

“Why?”

There was never another question, after a greeting; none was needed. Sometimes she was asked first. After the first few, she asked as well.

Why travel here? Who dares the lands most people avoid, where you can see the results of the Blight?

“It’s as close to home as I can get.”

“The war doesn’t come here.”

“It’s quiet.”

It was never because it was easier to live here, but that something called to them. They wouldn’t forget. They wouldn’t abandon the past. That or they reveled in the dangers that were visible, rather than those from their fellows.

One or two, she guessed might have a similar reason as she: further from the Chantry’s reach.

There was a trio she was fairly sure were mages, twitching at any sound until they saw her.  _ ‘No reason - no reason at all. Researching.’ _

The lie was palpable, but she simply nodded. There wasn’t much food, but she showed the youngest how to twine snares for fennec and rabbits. They inhaled the food in the morning, though the man gave her a strange look.

“You carry interesting things.”

She shrugged, holding his eyes. He shifted, but didn’t quite break her gaze. “Perhaps.”

It was enough. He didn’t want trouble, and truthfully neither did she. They were hiding from war, or hiding from what they had done, or hiding from the Chantry. She was...doing something similar.

Some nights, she slipped across the blackened border between the sick lands and the Blightlands. The sharp dust was harsher, the soil and remnants of plants crumbling under her boots, but it was a way to be sure she would sleep easily. When she saw a house or road, that was a sign she should deviate and find something to augment the thin forage she managed as she walked.

The journey was slow. Travellers were rare enough she could go days without seeing anyone, left to the unease of her own thoughts.

What had they become?

They tried to remember. They knew the history - what of it was still taught. But there was so much the Blades had forgotten or let slip aside. It had never been a test of strength to see who was First Blade. It was a test of faith.

What did it mean, when the Blades went from faith to power? It was something - was it because the ones who couldn’t wield the Sword had wanted an excuse? A reason for others to follow beyond sheer violence?

They were slaves, descendents of slaves - but they were also descendents of the Almarri, ‘barbarians’ shaped by the harsh lands of the Wilds and mountains. It was not brutality that made the Almarri respect strength and vision. It was the needs of the tribes. The leader  _ needed  _ to be able to survive, needed experience and to see.

Whit chewed on near-leathered meat, even after it had soaked in water for an hour. What did it mean? She had knowledge. The Blades thirsted for knowledge - most of them. Some preferred to lean into the action and steel, but they all believed in doubt.

Doubt and fear shaped them.

“Doubt and fear shaped  _ me,”  _ she sighed to herself. “Why, mother?”

The dead gave no answers. At least, that was the truth outside the Imperium or the Temple itself. She would never know. Whit shook her hair out of her face, then pulled her boot knife. How long? She gathered strands long enough to gather now, and sliced. 

“It’s not because I’m afraid.” The lie twisted against her. Whit sighed. “It’s easier. More comfortable.”

The strands fell onto the Taint-charred planks of the house, almost lost as black-on-black. Her neck felt cool, but she kept cutting. Once the strands were too short, she pulled from the side and shaved the blade up, against the skin of her head.

More.

It hadn’t mattered in Haven. It...might, when she returned.

_ ‘The years have brought joy.’ _

She blinked. Years? No, surely not - but Maferath had never lied to her. “Three years. Three  _ years,  _ I’ve been gone.” It had all been a blur, days melding into unchanging days, the light and temperature never shifting with the seasons. Books and training filled her days, questioning and silence her nights. Three years was enough time for people to mourn her loss. They’d waited three years to mourn her mother’s - all but Daddy, who had needed more. Would they have held her funeral?

Well, she was going to return. That’s what mattered. They wouldn’t refuse her entry.

The pulse of ‘how long’ pressed further as she was able to turn north, using the Chantries along the way as safer for a lone traveller than the inns. It made her laugh, even if bitterly, to realize  _ she  _ was using it.

They hadn’t seen who she was. “What would they do if they knew?”

Whit shook her head. She knew. But soon, it wouldn’t matter. The winter followed her north and up as the land changed from snow-covered plains still soft with the scent of plenty to one of stone and pine.

The Blades had been there for generations.

_ Daddy wouldn’t leave his home. He’d fight like a wolverine to keep it.  _ That, she knew.

The people shifted away from her as she found the land she’d grown up in. Pollen’s voice didn’t echo in her thoughts, or Olem’s demands for more. Even Maferath and the unnamed spirits of the Temple were silent as she adjusted to a land that had changed less than she had.

It became familiar, yet different. Some landmarks, she knew like the bones of her own face. Others were gone to new rockslips. Trees had fallen and been claimed as firewood. New ones had shifted the landscape. This was as far as any of her fellows had wandered - which meant it was time to change paths.

Climbing high above where there was anything useful, her mother had once shown her a tiny little cavelet. It wasn’t large and, buried behind a heavy boulder, was useless for scouting. Floods poured through it in the spring snowmelt; the back was only stoppered by ice.

But that regular unreliability made it priceless to her now. She couldn’t just bring the Sword home, not without knowing how things had changed.

Three paces in, she stuffed it scabbard-first into a crevice almost large enough to hold it, then covered the hilt with a bit of dark nughide she’d rough-tanned along the way. She sniffed deeply, then nodded. Unless someone was deep in, it would be invisible through the winter. She poured her waterskin onto the hide; it would freeze solid before dawn, adding to the camouflage.

“Trefir,” she murmured quietly, “guide me. It’s too much, too sudden. I have to see them first. I have to talk to them.” Daddy loomed against her mind, and her back grew tight. 

Daddy wouldn’t understand - maybe...maybe she could convince him?

“Andraste, help my words. We still serve you.”

Whit closed her eyes to breathe silently for a few minutes. Then, checking her work, she left. The nughide had already begun to stiffen. This secret, like the others, would be safe, at least for a little while. It would be long enough for her to think.

She’d been gone so long - who knew what might have changed?

Three hours later, she was grateful for her foresight.

“Hold!”

She stopped, startled into pulling out an axe before the shape of the word caught up to her. It was another tongue that had learned Trade grudgingly. Familiar. She  _ knew  _ it. “Hail, brother!”

Silence answered for a moment.

Whit moved forward again, eager to see him.

“By Trefir and Hessarian!” The heavily-furred figure wrapped arms around her. “Whit. By Andraste herself, I never...you’re back. I’d mourned you last season.”

The embrace didn’t last long. Why would it? Olem punched her shoulder. “You look good for a dead man, you know. I’ve got to finish my patrol - two days more. Go on in. Watchword’s ‘Vigilant’ in response to ‘Warden.’ We’ve had to be careful thanks to the war. Damned Chantry and their foolishness. If they can’t keep the obedience of their blades, what good are they?”

“Maybe they worry about other things first.”

“They have to!” Olem barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “You’ve not had to deal with it. You’ll see. Where were you? Where did...did you find it?”

She shook her head. “I was in the Frostbacks.” It was a side-step, but he shrugged and seemed to expect nothing less. “D...my father? Pollen, Cameron, Gidgit, the dogs…”

“Easy! They’re all whole.”

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Whole’ was not ‘well.’ It wasn’t even ‘uninjured.’

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Olem shook his head. “Talk to Pollen. You’ll see. There were four challenges while you were gone. It’s...well. We are the blade, not the hand that wields us.”

What had happened?

No, surely it was Olem exaggerating. She’d been gone three years, but Daddy wouldn’t have declared her dead. He hadn’t accepted her mother’s death before she left, and that had been five years or more. He’d accept her back. Her heartpain stabbed for a moment in a reminder, then subsided. It would wait until she knew.

“I’ll head in,” she said. “Messages?”

It snapped him back into being a scout - that was easier for both of them, with this new chasm of secrets. Her heart ached. “Quiet as of Skyday. Five in the distance, moved away. Whatever’s up at the northern coast, it hasn’t stretched inland.”

She nodded.

“Good man. I’ll be back in three days at most.”

“Keep your eyes wary,” she said. There was time for one more hard hug, then he continued on, and she followed his backtrail. Her questions would have to wait til she returned.

She hadn’t told him about Hessarian’s Sword.

_ Why not? _

“It isn’t time yet,” she murmured. “I need to see. I need to understand, to talk to Daddy and Pollen and the others.” She’d sworn she wouldn’t come back without it, but Olem hadn’t asked more than the single question. Then again, why would he? There weren’t many places she could conceal a sword, not from trained eyes who knew how she loaded her bag.

Two days later, and the weather-worn stockade came into view. She’d been waved on by Mariss, wide-eyed at her return.

“Three years! Andraste’s smiling on you!”

The number still hurt almost as much as the new scars Mariss wore. How different was  _ she,  _ though? Her hair might be shorn short and her tattoo still inked, but everything fit as differently as the new armor she’d made for herself. It was a larger shock than she’d expected, but she  _ should  _ have. After all, who’d come back from the Temple of Sacred Ashes in the last century and a half? One First Blade, shortly before falling to a challenge.

And now her.

She swallowed. It was home, but the pain she felt in her heart meant she looked at it differently. She’d been gone too long not to. Did all Blades who left go through this, where what they knew no longer sat as comfortably in their minds?

It was Pollen on the palisade, like he always was when evening settled.

“Name your-”

His voice stopped when she lowered her hood again and looked up. His bow also lowered from the half-draw any unexpected returns garnered.

“Open the gate!” That command was shouted down. “Whit’s returned! First Blade, your son’s come back!”

She was back, and Daddy was still First Blade. Her heart ached.

**

Whit shivered as his hand patted her cheek. The three years vanished like smoke in the breeze. Their fortress was still the same rough-hewn barrier protecting the Faithful, still redolent with mabari, cooking boar, and weapon oil overwhelming the greener scent of rain and trees just outside. There was no sap-scent - none of the buildings had needed repair during this past winter.

“You’ve not changed, have you?” Daddy’s eyes bored into her, almost as deeply as his voice did. The hollow feeling grew as she saw the trace of bitterness hiding behind his smile.

She’d tried.  _ Andraste  _ and Trefir both, she’d tried. It wasn’t that she’d failed her mission to find the Blade again, no. The problem was that she’d succeeded, and changed more than he could ever guess.

“Three years, my son.” 

The past - she focused on the past.  _ Tell it as a story.  _ It would become a story, if she lived to tell it. He was even larger than he’d been when he’d taken leadership by combat seven years ago. Four years of that, and she’d left seeking the Blade of Mercy stolen from them. The rumors had come whispering through before she reached adulthood, of a Temple. There’d been a Temple once. Her mind kept spinning in frantic circles, anything to keep from running - anything to keep from falling, sobbing, into her father’s arms.

“You found me,” the words were tender as they came from his lips. “After all this time, you found me again.”

Could the others hear the heavy promise of violence? “Of course I came back. I said I would.”

It wasn’t hard to find the fortress, not when it had been seared into memory, every rockfall along the twisting path familiar even in their newness. The Coast was rough and unwelcoming unless you knew its ways. Thus, the Faithful had stayed safe with their knowledge.

She knew all of that. She’d walked it.  _ ‘You know what you must do.’  _ Maferath’s voice caught her off-guard, but she pushed it aside as she looked at Daddy. He hadn’t changed.

“I’ve returned, father.”

When he hugged her, she couldn’t stop herself from leaning into his warmth. Father.

_ Nightmare. _

_ Soon,  _ she promised herself. She hadn’t returned empty-scabbarded, no matter how empty her hands. She managed another swallow as she remembered the journey through the ‘Chantry’ people. The Faithful had their ways, even if the once-Faithful there had fallen into heresy. There were still paths that only followers of a slave could find, and none of Haven’s original guardians were left within the town - or Temple. None but a slave...none but one who remembered the  _ true  _ Chant, the verses that had been mutilated or amputated, replaced by more convenient ones.

After eating and reassuring Char and Cole, she went back to their cabin. Her room hadn’t changed, though her furs and blankets were stiff from disuse. Daddy had said nothing about her promise to find the Sword of Mercy. It had been a hopeless quest, a vain promise.

She let him believe it as the missing faces shone around those who were there. Daddy’s pallet was covered in heavy woven blankets, a new weapons rack holding gleaming blades that hadn’t been made here. Alone on her pallet, curled into a ball in the corner of her father’s house, she fought down bile and terror mixed with guilt. He was her father. He was also wrong. Wrong and twisted. The mabari snorted at her again, and then one head pressed against her hip.

If she’d had nothing, Whit knew what she would have done. The routine would be easy to fall back into, the warnings easy to ignore without the knowledge she had. Her heart ached - she couldn’t fall back into it because she had not come home empty handed.

Her home hadn’t changed, but it had. She said nothing when she woke, sidestepping more questions from Gidgit and Cameron as she had Olem on the trail. The books hid in her pack, tucked under her pallet. Daddy wouldn’t ask. Her pack wasn’t large enough for a blade, and that was what mattered to him. She stepped nearer to the center of the fortress. Training was even harder than when she’d left; she saw more blood along the packed dirt than she remembered. The smith was gone - Bryson. Silverbeard, called that for so long even she’d almost forgotten his true name.

Olem’s comment itched.  _ They are whole. _

Whole was not well, and everything she saw confirmed it.

Daddy had stretched and joined in, waving her aside. “He needs rest. Food. Tomorrow’s drill is soon enough. I’ll test his blades myself.”

Morning drill. Memories of other morning drill came back. That drill was with another heavy, bearded face, one with white streaks through his dark hair and weary eyes.  _ Prepare yourself.  _ She swallowed that memory down; it would do no good here. Even Char and Coal were thinner, growling warily as she went back to her room.

“Whit?”

She uncurled. Only Gidgit would come in like this. What use would another sidestep be?  _ May your faith be strong.  _

_ ‘Well done, young Blade.’ _

“I found it.” Her heart eased slightly, but she stopped with just those three words. Whit didn’t want to say more when Daddy could come back. Not with how far he’d twisted the Blades around his own greed and rage. 

“Truly?”

The first real smile, if twisted, she’d had since sighting her home blossomed on her face. “Of course. I never stopped looking.”

“You wouldn’t.” She tried not to warm too much at the backhanded compliment - compliments were dangerous and not to be trusted. She knew that. “But you didn’t bring it with you.”

“No.” It was more complicated than that, but it was answer enough for now.

“You mean to…?”

Whit shrugged in the shadows, against the bear fur. Even Gidgit wouldn’t see it. Fear and longing...and guilt. A daughter’s love, a daughter’s pain...and finally, a daughter’s rebellion in the only way she dared. She’d not intended to come back. She’d not truly intended to survive. Once the Blade was in her hand, though, she couldn’t  _ not  _ return. Her Crest cut into her hand, she gripped it so hard.

“I’ll do...we are Blades.”  _ Could she wield them?  _ She had no choice, not if she did what pressed at her.

Gidgit waited for more, then left.

Morning was the same drill, but she started hearing more even as Daddy beat her into the icy ground, the same as he always had. She knew she couldn’t stand up to him, but the ache the sword left in her heart wouldn’t let her go. She was slow again, stupid with fear and doubt.

_ ‘Prepare yourself.’ _

The days passed, but the old routine kept being broken by newer memories. Maferath’s face one day, nodding along with Pollen’s words. The unknown woman’s reciting the Chant with Gidgit. The words of the books buried deep in her packs and hidden there burned with what she’d read.

He wouldn’t understand.

Whit curled around the hole in her heart, unrelieved even by Olem’s return. Gidgit’s eyes kept piercing her back.  _ You know. You must. _

Daddy wouldn’t question. The Sword would never accept him - he would have believed the behemoth in a way he couldn’t believe the truth. There was no doubt in him, only rage. 

_ “Trefir,”  _ she whispered,  _ “I know. But I’m scared.” _

She could fall back into the old ways and live yet another lie, but this time she wouldn’t. She also wouldn’t simply collect the Sword and show it to the others. After so much time, they wouldn’t be able to believe the truth. It was too...humble, and the Blades had learned pride.

There was only one way. There had only ever been one way.

Challenge.

Any Blade could call Challenge, and Andraste would aid her chosen. That was the certainty the Blades had now. She’d have to stand up to him  _ and  _ her past. She'd have to be who she'd become, rather than who she had been. _'Well done, young Blade,'_ Maferath's voice rang in her memory.

_ Andraste, have mercy on me.  _

Once she found her courage, she’d kill him. Blood couldn’t erase the years, but there would be justice - and purification.

There would be mercy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This entire work - Whit and Maferath, Harrit, Pollen, Olem, Gidgit, and Cameron - began from a simple question. Why would Andraste, who had been Almarri, have sung the Chant in Trade? Why would she have sung of herself in the third person, when the Chant was her love-song to the Maker?
> 
> Out of that, the Blades took life beyond what the creators at Bioware had given us.
> 
> All of this is my own, including the 'true' Chant of Light, using the same structure as the Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe from Dragon Age: Inquisition. I've had fun with it, including bouncing ideas off the Emporium's Avvar expert, Ammocharis. I can only hope you've enjoyed reading Whit's journey as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Toshi


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